


Divergence Day

by manic_intent



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And things effectively go to hell, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, NOTE: the Major Character Death in question is offscreen and takes place BEFORE the fic, Spoilers for DoFP, That AU where Erik shoots first and asks questions later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:03:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1686008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The room that Charles is held in is simple, and underground, a concrete bunker of a place hewn into a cube, with a simple white cot for a bed. There's a small black and white television set, plugged to the wall within hand's reach of the bed, and an ensuite bathroom attached to the chamber. They're somewhere in the Nevada desert, as far as Charles dimly remembers, one of Erik's many boltholes. There's no one else in the entire facility, and Erik's mind is closed to Charles from the helmet. The silence is both blissful and excruciating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For @semiurge, who asked for an AU where things go Erik's way at the end of DoFP. 
> 
> This fic is going to be essentially one huge DoFP spoiler, but if people aren't aware, here's the spoiler space:
> 
> S
> 
> P
> 
> O
> 
> I
> 
> L
> 
> E
> 
> R 
> 
> **NOTE** : The premise of this fic is that Erik shoots first, and then talks later, and the story starts after the incident. So everyone in Nixon's bunker dies (Nixon, Trask, Stryker, Raven and various randoms). I wasn't sure whether or not to tag the fic as Major Character Death when the MCD in question happens prior to the fic and offscreen, but I guess I might as well, to be safe...

I.

Charles waits until he is absolutely alone before he lets the pain come.

Somewhere out in the... _facility_ that he's been deposited in is Raven's body. His _sister's_ body. Charles has failed, and the sheer enormity of his spectacular failure still renders him wordless. The President and all his aides murdered, Trask dead, Logan likely dead as well, and Raven, Gods, _Raven_ , who had tried to do the right thing at the end, who had tried to pretend to be the President-

It had meant her death, and all the deaths of the humans behind her regardless, and even as Raven had reverted into her true form as she had collapsed, the worst of it had been Erik's _eyes_. Charles had touched Raven's mind desperately at the point of her passing and all she had thought of was Erik's remorseless eyes, the cold set of his mouth, only the brief jump of a muscle in his jaw to indicate his surprise as she had changed - then died.

And then he had been plucked out of the wreckage, away from Hank, and he had not resisted, part mad from grief and from pain ; his and Raven's and _Hank's_. They had all failed. His future self had held too much hope. 

The room that Charles is held in is simple, and underground, a concrete bunker of a place hewn into a cube, with a simple white cot for a bed. There's a small black and white television set, plugged to the wall within hand's reach of the bed, and an ensuite bathroom attached to the chamber. They're somewhere in the Nevada desert, as far as Charles dimly remembers, one of Erik's many boltholes. There's no one else in the entire facility, and Erik's mind is closed to Charles from the helmet. The silence is both blissful and excruciating. 

Charles spends the first day curled in bed, ignoring Erik's occasional visit, and the second day drinking water and watching news broadcasts with the grim finality of an accidental survivor. News reviews are mixed, caught between condemnation of Erik's brutal murders and some commendation - Raven's ultimately failed attempt to save the other humans had been noticed. 

So there was still hope. 

A small hope. 

And Charles would not waste it. 

On the third day Charles drags himself to the simple steel wheelchair that had been provided in a corner beside the bed, awkwardly takes a cold bath and finds a wardrobe of clothes hidden behind a neat sliding door in the concrete bunker: white jacket, white trousers, soft white slippers. It makes Charles look like a prisoner and Erik the gaoler, a reverse of the situation Charles had found Erik in, within the Pentagon, and his lip quirks humourlessly in the mirror as he studies himself. His eyes are reddened, in dark hollow circles, and his hair juts out in awkward tangles, his beard an unruly growth creeping down his chin.

He looks as much a mess as he feels, and Charles wonders bitterly how much of what had happened was his fault, after all. He had only come into his own nearer the end; before that he had been too caught up in his own pain, too afraid of his own powers. If only Charles had - earlier - if he could have stopped Erik from shooting Raven in the summit, if only- 

Angrily, Charles wheels himself back to the bathroom, where he hacks his hair short with steel scissors and shaves himself with a razor. His hand slips once, and he ends up bleeding from a shallow cut on his jaw, cursing and getting blood all over the sink as he tries to staunch the wound. As he gropes blindly for a hand towel, long fingers pick it from the rack and press it into his hands, then the razor floats up off the sink.

"May I?" Erik says mildly, and Charles grimaces, glancing up into Erik's reflection. Erik is dressed like a businessman, neat and fashionable in a lovely dove gray shirt, buttoned up nearly to the neck, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and pressed charcoal dress pants: only the helmet rather seems to spoil the overall impression. Time has only made Erik more handsome, Charles notes sourly: even the ruthless line to his mouth but adds to his wolfish, unavoidable appeal. 

Erik is by far the most dangerous man Charles has ever known: above Trask, above Shaw. He closes his eyes even as he uses the towel to apply pressure to the cut. "Feel free." 

The cut stops bleeding by the time Erik finishes helping him shave and clean up, and then Erik is resting his hands lightly on the handles of the wheelchair, studying Charles in the mirror even as Charles watches him just as grimly. They make a pretty pair, Charles supposes. The mass murderer and the failed professor.

"You look younger like this," Erik says finally, almost tenderly, stroking a thumb up along the now smooth line of Charles' jaw. 

Charles lets out a bark of laughter. "I look like a drug addict."

"You _are_ a drug addict," Erik reaches over to pointedly tap Charles' arm, over his long white sleeve - under it, his skin is dotted from countless needle tracks. 

"At least one of us looks true to type, then." 

Erik sighs. "Charles, if I could, I would have spared Raven. I loved her as well. How was I to know that she had-"

"That was of no comfort to her when you riddled her with _bullets_ , I assure you. What did you do to her body?"

"Burned and buried. Her grave site-"

"Please," Charles grits out, and he finds that he's shaking, but it's rage this time that he feels, clean and clear, not regret or grief, and he clings to it as he meets Erik's eyes in the mirror. "Spare me."

Erik's lips twitch faintly, quietly. " _Dear_ Charles," he says, and shakes his head slowly. "This was for the future. I took no pleasure in any of those deaths. You have seen the future, have you not? Surely you must have looked within Logan's mind, or you would never have believed a story as fantastical as his." 

The razor wipes itself on the bloodstained cloth and tucks itself away, even as a metal-capped brush and pan sweeps Charles' cropped hair neatly away. Charles grits his teeth. "I saw the future," he concedes tightly. "But I believed him before I looked into his mind."

Erik narrows his eyes briefly, then he nods. "Ah, yes. The serum. You could still walk, when you broke me out of the Pentagon. I suppose I am surprised. Logan's story is hard to swallow without correlation."

"He knew things about me that I had never told anyone else - yet." 

"And that was all it took? Information is a parlour trick for many of our kind, Charles, and even for a handful of very resourceful humans. Don't be naive."

" _And_ ," Charles says quietly, "I was very _taken_ by a single idea, one that he believed with all his heart, one that I did not need to look into his mind to want to believe in. That you and I, in the future, had mended bridges. That you and I could work together." 

_Loved_ , Logan had said, utterly unselfconsciously, so matter-of-fact. Love. It had been love that Charles had felt when he had touched his own older mind, decades through into the future. It had been love that he felt humming at the front of the mind of the older Erik, standing so protectively behind Charles' wheelchair-bound older self. It had been the inextricable mesh of _Erik_ that he had felt interlaced into his older self's mind, the way only the luckiest of lovers could get, as _partners_ , as more. It had been a single idea, so irrevocably _seductive_ that it had given Charles hope. 

"That we could still do," Erik says mildly, and Charles clenches his hands tightly on the steel arms of his wheelchair. "Work with me, Charles."

"You are a _murderer_."

"And was my future self not a murderer as well? What did you see in Logan's mind about myself, Charles?"

"I saw that it took me close on half a century to forgive you, and only because it was necessary, and by then, it was too late." It is not quite the truth, and perhaps Erik senses it - he smiles tightly, his elegant fingers tracing the sleek handlebar of the wheelchair. 

"I have a proposition for you, Charles," Erik says idly. 

"Join you in your new world or die in my old one?" Charles asks sarcastically. "Spare me."

"No," Erik chuckles, and there's something ruthless there, something fond, and Charles isn't sure what hurts him more. "You loved your school."

"I did." 

"I will give you another one." Erik says briskly. "Here. Or somewhere more conducive, perhaps, when I have time to make another place that is more secure. There are blacksites owned by the government in the Rockies and in wilder areas that may be more suitable."

"A _school_?" Charles repeats scornfully. "To train up your future little soldiers?"

"No, Charles. Conscription is not my way, and not all of our kind have abilities that might be suitable for... a more military slant. I want to help _all_ of our kind, not just those with great powers. You will have your school. Teach the children how to read, how to write, about literature, history, geography, math, whatever you please. Train other teachers, the way you used to."

"And if I turn them against you? What then?"

Erik smiles thinly. "I do not fear that. Give the students a choice. Your way, or mine. But I expect that we will be hunted now as we never have been before-"

"And whose fault was _that_ , pray tell?"

"-and those who are most vulnerable among us all, the young, will need a place to go," Erik continues blithely. "They will need to be found." 

"I won't help you find your new army, Erik."

"I am not asking you to find an army for me," Erik says flatly, reaching down to tip up Charles' chin, to meet his cold, hard eyes. "But I remember war, even if you do not. I remember living during a time where being different meant being sent to brutal death camps. I remember when the killings started, when families turned upon each other. The murders will start soon. I will be installing Cerebro in one of the adjoining rooms. When you have swallowed your self-righteousness and your _principles_ and have grown tired of all the bloodshed that is to come, then _help them_."

" _You_ caused all of this!"

"No. Trask did. The humans did. Remember that." Erik drops his fingers, stepping away. "There is food for you in the kitchens. Feel free to explore the facility."

II.

As Erik predicted, the killings start, and news broadcasts are tied between the brutal wave of anti-mutant violence that rocks the nation and its continuing coverage of the Nixon assassination. Charles lasts two days before he cannot bear it further, and wheels himself out of the room, looking for Erik.

The facility is an old blacksite, Erik explained to him, once used for the joint development of hovercraft with Stark Industries during the second World War that had ultimately failed. It is _immense_ , with three huge hangars enough to fit at least three commercial jets apiece, and a honeycomb of smaller rooms of various sizes. It's also claustrophobic, and haunting when empty, and Charles is thoroughly lost by the time he finds himself in one of the huge hangars, studying a stained old map affixed to the wall. 

Thankfully, Erik finds him there, dressed up with a pale blue scarf and a black wool coat, as though he had just come back from an interstate trip.

"Texas," Charles says tightly. "The burnings."

"Yes."

"Can you stop it?" 

"I can't be everywhere." 

Charles lets out a low, harsh sound, and clenches his hands on his lap into fists. "I made a promise," he says finally. "To Logan. I have to save, in particular, three people. 'Storm', 'Scott', and 'Jean'. I saw others in his mind too. 'Bobby', 'Kitty', 'Rogue'... some of them perhaps as yet to be born."

"Show me where they are, and I will take them here." 

"Is Cerebro installed?" Charles asks, brittle in defeat and wishing he sounded calm instead. 

"As best as I remember, although it was damaged even before I tried to move it. I also have your books, and your teaching materials."

"Raided my house like a burglar in the night, did you?" Charles snorts. "And I want Hank, and Logan." Logan might not be the Logan that Charles had interacted with, over the past few days, but his younger self - but still, he knows somehow, deep down, that he will need Logan.

"Find them and I'll bring them here." Erik grips the handles of the wheelchair, but Charles impatiently waves him aside, wheeling himself painfully beside Erik's long stride, instead, following him through the long breadth of the hangar and down a sloped incline. Cerebro is in a large room at the base that looks newly made, a sphere with a platform that juts out into empty space.

"You work quickly," Charles says grudgingly, as he wheels up to the panels, newly cleaned and already humming with energy.

"Not my first time," Erik reminds Charles, but Charles ignores him, putting on the helmet, and the world shifts and falls away into light - and _pain_ \- and - it is harder - _than before_ \- 

Maybe Charles screams. He isn't too sure. 

When he comes to, Charles is slumped in the wheelchair, still in the new Cerebro room, while Erik presses a cold cloth to his forehead, frowning, his expression tight with concern. Behind him, the smoking Cerebro panel repairs itself, wires stitching up under panels that float up and back down to admit cabling.

"Charles," Erik's tone is urgent, when Charles groans and pushes feebly at his hand. "My apologies, there must have been an error in the installation-"

"No error, just... not stable," Charles manages to gasp out, as Erik presses a glass of water to his lips. He drinks, greedily, then rubs a hand over his face. " _I'm_ not stable," he elaborates, with another brittle half-smile, and Erik's gaze narrows further, his mouth setting into a hard line.

"The serum?"

"No. Not entirely. Hank is in Westchester, in the mansion. Logan is still in the river that you tossed him into, _God_ , Erik, the only reason why he isn't dead is because of his healing factor. And there's - and there are children in Arizona who need to be... they're soon about to be... their parents need to be _warned_ , or some just need to be extracted, or, or talked to, or... it's so bad out there, Erik," Charles whispers, and his voice is cracking, even as he manages to hold back tears. "What have you _done_ , Erik? _What have you done?_ "

Erik stares at him searchingly, for a long moment, then he kneels down beside Charles' wheelchair, curling the fingers of one hand into Charles', squeezing tightly. "Give me all the locations. And your impressions." 

"I'll need paper, or, or-" 

"Push the information into my mind. I'll take the helmet off."

Uncomprehendingly, Charles can only blink. "But I'll - but you'll-" 

"I think you can see now," Erik says harshly, "That for good or ill, you _need me_. Do you think that if you _stop me_ , the violence will cease? Or would you rather that I helped who I could now? The children that you've seen? Or Logan, who is slowly drowning? I don't want to waste any time."

"My control's gone, Erik." Charles waves self-deprecatingly at the still-repairing Cerebro facility.

"Charles," Erik notes, with a faint, thin smile. "For all that I have ever done, for all of your convictions, you have never truly hurt me, and I think that you will never be able to." Charles flinches, but Erik continues, evenly, "I need you now, and you need me. Are we agreed?" 

"We..." Charles hesitates. A deal with the devil. This is- "We are agreed," he says finally, heavily, and Erik nods. He tugs the helmet off, setting it pointedly in Charles' lap, and for a mad, irrational moment, all Charles is focused on is how flat and unruly the skull of the helmet has made Erik's usually sleek hair, and he almost reaches out for it. 

Thankfully, what he _does_ do is clench his fingers into the edges of the helmet, the metal biting into his skin. He takes a few breaths to steady himself, and then Charles pushes the information that he had learned from Cerebro into Erik's mind, not gently, not even cushioning the pain.

Erik grows pale, but he makes not a sound, even as he nods and gets to his feet. The last panel on the Cerebro machine settles back into place. "Don't use it alone," Erik cautions him, and Charles shoots him a mirthless smile. 

"I know my limits."

"Do you need help-"

"No. Go do what you must. You don't have much time."

Erik nods curtly and strides from the chamber. Once he is gone, Charles turns the helmet in his lap around, until the empty visor yawns up at him. He brings it up to eye level, studying the dulled sheen of its faceguard, the silver of its rim, and briefly considers flinging it from him, useless as the gesture would be. Erik could simply levitate it back up from the depths of Cerebro if he wanted. 

Charles strokes a hand over Cerebro's panel, his lip curling, then he settles the helmet back in his lap and wheels the chair around, making his painful way back up. _I have no choice_ , Charles tells himself, as the wheels scrape and roll over the concrete. _Raven, forgive me. I have no choice_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all right, wow, I actually didn't think a lot of people would've been interested in this fic ^^;; (I'm one of those people who will never touch a fic marked Major Character Death, lol). Thanks everyone for your interest. :) Here's a quick update of run on ideas. I'll try to keep updates regular, but we'll see how real life goes.

I.

The group of five children plucked out of their homes and schools are traumatised and frightened, two of them even weeping for their parents as they cling to each other, and to Charles' profound irritation Erik simply leaves them with him before taking off again.

He manages to calm all of them down to rest, somehow, not daring to use his abilities, and Charles is trying to puzzle out how to use the stove to heat up some canned soup when Erik returns, pushing a nervous-looking Hank before him briskly. 

"Professor!" Hank rushes over, even as the stove switches itself off and the ventilator slides open. "Are you all right?"

"Five minutes more and he might have caused a gas explosion," Erik mutters, "Honestly, Charles."

"It was just a matter of an application of basic principles," Charles retorts, injured, but he allows Hank to take over, wheeling himself out of the way with relief. "I see you've managed to retrieve Logan." 

Erik shrugs. "Much good that was. Perhaps the drowning caused memory loss. He has no idea who I am, and became violent when I insisted that he come with me. I had to restrain him in one of the side rooms." 

"I've dealt with that before." Charles takes the location from the forefront of Erik's mind, wheeling himself laboriously out of the kitchens and towards the room where Erik had left Logan. 

Logan still looks part drowned, his clothes drenched, pinned to the wall by metal struts, and he growls and shifts against the concrete as he glances at Charles, then behind Charles, at Erik. "Even assholes have friends, I see," Logan says finally, and grins sharply. Logan has accurately guessed that Erik was behind him being thrown in the river - probably because the metal struts holding him to the wall were the same used to impale him earlier. 

"Not a friend," Charles says, a little too sharply than he meant, then gentles his tone. "Logan, you need to calm down. Calm your mind. Then it'll all make sense and-"

"What is this, some new fuckin' fangled anger management crash course?" Logan wriggles pointedly in the grip of the struts, teeth bared. "Let me go and I'll show you how fuckin' _calm_ I am, Wheels." 

"You're not making a terribly good case against your continued incarceration," Charles points out dryly, and Logan rolls his eyes. 

"What d'you want me to do? Sing hosannas? Recite a limerick? I know when I'm outclassed. Just let me out of here and we'll call it quits. I don't want trouble, I have no idea why we tussled in the first place, and I've probably been fired from my day job by now." 

Frowning, Charles tentatively reaches out for Logan's mind, as gently as he can, touching the surface thoughts, scanning the imagery, the emotions, then he frowns. "He doesn't remember. There's no trace of the... the future one at all." 

"That's... convenient." Erik drawls.

"Yes, _convenient_. After you _conveniently_ riddled him with metal and threw him into a _river_ and left him to _drown_ ," Charles retorts sharply. "Trauma weakens the link between his past and future mind. His consciousness must have reverted. We'll have no further aid from the future until he comes back. _If_ he does." Logan's mind - the future Logan - had been full of heavy finality, of an oncoming doom, a desperate last stand. 

Another casualty to Erik's _damned_ thirst for blood. 

"Let him go," Charles decides heavily.

"He's a killer. I've seen him in action."

"Oh really? The two of you will get along just _splendidly_ , then."

Erik sighs, and Charles feels the surface hum of irritation and resignation in his mind before the struts unwind from the wall. Logan lands neatly on his feet, rolling his shoulders, rubbing at his wrists as his gaze jumps from Erik to Charles, and back. The steady, iron discipline that Charles was used to seeing in the older version of Logan is gone. This younger Logan looks part feral, his big fingers twitching at his side, and there's a stillness to him that reminds Charles of a huge predator, coiled to strike. 

"What's the last thing that you remember, Logan?" Charles asks, trying to sound as reassuring as he can.

"I remember not being fuckin' _called_ Logan," Logan retorts, his eyes narrowing. Logan - _Jimmy's_ \- current name is floating right above his thoughts, and Charles hesitates, and nods. 

"James," he concedes, and Logan's eyes narrow further. 

"Mindreaders? I hate mindreaders." He glances over to Erik. "Nearly as much as I hate elemental-class muties. We done?" 

"There's a... television set around here," Charles says tiredly, giving up. "Do yourself a favour and watch an hour or so of the news broadcasts. After that, if you still wish to leave, you may leave." 

"Charles," Erik warns.

"There are children here. If James does not want to be here, then it may be safer to let him do what he pleases." 

"Finally, someone speaking _sense_." Logan's big hands knot as they clench and unclench. "So I watch an hour of telly, then I can go?" 

"As I've said."

"Well, show me to this telly, then," Logan says gruffly.

They leave him in a spare room, and Charles starts to wheel back towards the kitchen, then hesitates. He looks for Hank's mind, instead, and - again as gently as he can - pushes the impression of five children, a location, prep and names into Hank's mind, waits for the surprise-acknowledgement-curiosity of a response, then withdraws.

Charles turns around, and starts to head towards the hangar and Cerebro, instead, only to nearly fall out of his wheelchair as it jerks to a stop. "Where are you going?" Erik asks briskly. 

"Cerebro."

"You may have overextended yourself on the previous attempt." 

"I'm calmer now," Charles growls, even though he isn't, not exactly. "And you have more work to do."

" _We_ have more work to do." Erik corrects, with a sharp smile. "But you have set a half-feral killer to watch a news broadcast in order to decide whether he wishes to stand with us or strike out on his own. I do not trust him not to attack Hank or the children if left unsupervised. You'll be too occupied with Cerebro to know whether or not you have to shut him down."

"He won't attack the children," Charles says, with certainty. He wasn't so sure about Hank, however, so he nibbles on his lower lip, uncertain.

As he dithers, Charles is saved from having to make a decision when Logan abruptly steps out of the room, where he promptly strides right up to Erik, his mind a sudden breaking wave of violence that startles Charles with its raw, animal ferocity. Charles reacts instantly, freezing Logan in his steps, and not a moment too soon - Logan was already into striking distance, his fists clenched, claws half-extended. A second later, Logan is thrown back against the wall, gasping, jerked backwards by his belt buckle. 

"You're a fuckin' _asshole_ ," Logan spits at Erik. "D'you know what you've _done_ to the rest of us? _Especially_ anyone who don't look all human?" 

"I am quite aware," Erik says coldly. "But I am confident of my solution." 

Logan's lip curls, and he glances at Charles. "And where d'you factor in, Wheels? You the brain of this op?"

"Do these clothes make me look like the mastermind to you?" Charles asks flatly. "I failed to stop Erik, and what's done has been done. Someday he will answer for what he has wrought, but right now, he's set the world on fire, and I need to help put it out. You can stay here if you like, or you can go, I do not care. But _I'm_ going to need all the help that _I_ can get."

II.

Slowly, the facility starts to fill up. Children, mainly, and some teenagers. Charles is unable to hide his wan relief and pleasure when Alex arrives in the facility, dragging a skinny kid with sunglasses behind him, and a group of three other mutants, their minds military-trained, wary.

"Hey, Prof," Alex's smile is hesitant, but when Charles' answering smile grows wide, he steps over to hug him fiercely, nearly lifting him from the wheelchair. Alex has grown into all hard muscle, but he's gentle as he lets Charles back down, his eyes serious. "I'm real sorry about Raven. I should'a come straight back to you when I got back from 'Nam. I'm sorry. I'm _so_ glad that you're okay. How's Hank? Is he here?"

"You're here _now_. And yes, Hank is here, and fine," Charles says gently. "Who are your friends?"

"Uh," Alex scratches his head. "This is Scott, my brother. He was in foster care, but I grabbed him out when shit hit the fan. We went on the run, but then Toad - err, I mean, Mort - found me in Ohio, said he'd heard word that there was a hideout here in Nevada, said he was gonna rock up and check it out. I told him to wait, and I got the rest of the boys together, just in case it was another trap. Man," Alex added ruefully. "Guess you were right, Professor. Vietnam mattered fuck all. The world went to hell right here in the U.S of A."

It's a struggle to keep smiling, but Charles pats Alex's wrist reassuringly. "That's in the past, Alex. Introduce me to your friends, if you would?"

"Uh, yeah. Like I said, this is Scott. This is Mort, calls himself Toad... that's Evans, or Spyke, and this one's Ink." Alex points them out in turn. "Guys, this is Professor Xavier, y'know, the guy who taught me how to stop fucking my life up. I told them all about you in 'Nam," Alex tells Charles, with a quick grin.

Ink's expression doesn't change, but Spyke snorts, and Mort says, dryly, with a strange lisp, "Doesn't seem like it worked all the time."

"Fuck you, Mort. Sorry, Prof."

"Hank will show you to your rooms," Charles reaches out for Hank's mind, over the hum of all the other minds in the facility, and gets a frazzled but clear sense of acknowledgement - and pleasure. Hank too, has missed Alex. "Advanced lessons will be starting - hopefully - in a week or so, but if any of you feel qualified to help out with the elementary-" 

"Prof," Alex says firmly, "We've _all_ seen what they've been doing to people like us. Texas was f- uh, messed up. Scott here is going to sign up for school - no, you shut your mouth, Scott - but me, and the boys? We want to help. We can pick up other people like us, the way you and Erik used to. We got military training, we can take care of ourselves, and we can get them here, no trouble. Just show us the way." 

Mort nods curtly, even as Ink glances around them and Evans scowls and also nods, and mutters, "Alex told us all about what you used to do. We can help. It's us or them."

Charles lets out a long and weary sigh. "It _isn't_ between 'us and them', gentlemen. It never was. Over half of the mutants in this facility have at least one human parent. _I_ had human parents."

He had expected indignation, perhaps, or denial, but what happens is worse - Alex merely exchanges glances with his friends before looking back at Charles, their minds wired, but calm. "Sure, Professor," Alex says calmly. "We're not gonna be looking for trouble, you can bet on that. We'll extract folks like us, easy as a dream, and get them back here without anyone following us. Don't worry. We're not kids anymore."

Charles gives up. "Make yourselves at home, gentlemen. Thanks for coming. Alex, I'll give you a list of names and locations within the hour." 

As Alex leads his brother and his friends away, Charles hesitates, and then turns around. "Scott... Scott Summers?" 

Scott stops dead, looking around nervously before his gaze slides over to Charles, fingering his sunglasses as though to make sure that they're still there. "Um. Yes?"

The boy is younger than Alex, Charles notes critically - he can't be into high school as yet. But now that Charles is looking for it, he can see the resemblance, from the scans of Logan's memory that he remembers, of a tall, young man with a visor and a confident stride. 

One out of three. 

"Professor?" Alex prompts, uncertain.

"My apologies, I was far away," Charles says wryly. "Welcome to Providence, gentlemen."

III.

Charles is making his last edit of the high school syllabus when he feels Erik's presence approaching, tired-curious-wary-pleased, and he glances up over his shoulder as Erik comes to a stop in the open doorway. Charles' study is a haphazard transplant of his own study from the mansion - just the books and his notes and records, stacked up on foldable furniture rather than antique oak. Due to the lack of proper shelving, stacks of paper have been piled over the concrete floor, a hazard for wheelchair use.

"You should appoint more assistants," Erik says, with a glance around the room. 

"I have, but they've been told to rest. We'll be sorting students into the high school syllabus tomorrow, with a view on sorting the college-level students within the next week." Charles waves at the papers on his desk. "Teaching a syllabus is going to be difficult. The children are all on varying levels of advancement and there are too few of them to be sorted into classes by year." 

"There'll be more," Erik shrugs, and Erik himself looks exhausted, Charles notes, studying him. There's a fierce energy to him still, but he's starting to look a little haggard. "Do you have any other names?"

"Allocated those into Alex's team and Logan - er - James' team." Logan had reluctantly if irritably volunteered to go on retrieval missions, or as the mutant called them, 'fuckin' babysnatching missions', just so he didn't have to 'sit around all day and listen to kiddies pukin' and crying'. "Get some rest."

The tip of Erik's mouth quirks, and to Charles' annoyance, Erik steps into the study instead, lifting some draft syllabi off a chair and setting them on the floor, then settling comfortably into the chair, crossing his long legs. "Hank's been part of your original school as long as you have. Let him shoulder more of this work. Between Cerebro and this, you'll run yourself into the ground."

"Exhaustion is good," Charles snaps back, as he turns back to the papers. "Remember that sleeping problem I mentioned?" 

Irritation and exasperation surfaces in a prickly rush of sensation in Erik's mind, but smooths out into wry amusement. "You can't run everything, Charles. The work you do with Cerebro is more important than-"

"For a lot of these _children_ that we've had to pluck from their families, school is the only organised, _familiar_ routine that we can give them," Charles cuts in flatly. "Just tearing them away from all they've ever known doesn't _save_ them, Erik, it _traumatises_ them. If you don't want to damage an _entire generation_ of mutants any more than you already have, then let _me_ decide what to do with _my_ time."

"I _agree_ that they need schooling and structure. That's why I've put them all under your care," Erik says evenly. "But you don't have to attend to every single _detail_. Act like a schoolmaster, a principal. Appoint teachers. Surely some of those whom we've saved have had tertiary educations-"

"Three," Charles interrupts. "Three graduates. An engineer, an English major, and a biologist. And if only, by God, that _academia_ was the only problem! It's a powder keg in here. Hank's had to break up _two_ fights, one of which accidentally melted a cabinet into _slag_. I had a school of _six_ students before, Hank, Alex, Raven, Sean, Armando and Angel... and even when the school got underway, I never had more than sixteen at a time, including teachers. Now I have over _fifty_ students and more coming in everyday-" 

"Seven students," Erik interrupts, and smiles faintly, and all of a sudden, Charles' nervous tension and stress and exasperation melts away - a laugh worms out of his throat despite himself, and he rubs his eyes.

"Fuck. You were the worst student."

"Oh, I think I managed." 

"You crippled your 'teacher', sparked off a new World War, killed at least one _President_ -"

"Thanks to you," Erik says mildly, "I am far more in control of my powers than I ever have been." He smiles thinly again, even as Charles scowls, furious at the reminder. All unthinking, he had honed Erik's gifts into a genuine natural disaster. Erik could never have lifted that stadium before Charles had taught him how to unlock his potential. 

As Charles stays silent, Erik sighs, and pulls up his chair to Charles' desk, picking up a sheet of paper at random. "Don't touch that pile, that's been finalised," Charles says automatically. 

Erik puts the paper back down. "Give me half of what's _not_ been finalised, then." 

Charles hesitates, then reluctantly sorts Erik half his pile. "This is the syllabus that I've drafted - the final draft - and this is the syllabus from Pine View. I've communicated with its director before... before all this happened, and we shared a lot of insights about education systems." 

Erik flips through the papers idly. "All academic?"

"For now, at least until Hank finishes fitting out one of the hangars as a safe practice zone. Some of the children have safe passive mutations that won't require practice. Many of them have very minor active mutations. The few that have... substantial active mutations will need special tutelage."

"I want to know their names." When Charles frowns at Erik, Erik arches an eyebrow at him. "Should I _not_ know the names of the people in the school who are likely to be a danger to the other fifty _students_?"

"I can handle it." All the forced practice with Cerebro has been good for one thing - Charles is getting better: if slowly. No more fits when wound up in Cerebro, at least.

"Don't be childish, Charles. You can't keep that a secret from me."

"I can," Charles says flatly, "If I want to." 

Erik stiffens, as Charles' implication gets to him, then his lip curls, and he leans over. "You need _me_ , Charles. More than I need _you_. Don't make me regret trusting you."

"You need a telepath to keep a school like this under control," Charles retorts. 

Erik narrows his eyes. "I don't want to _control_ anyone, Charles. Remember how that worked out for you, with your _first_ set of students? We're _all_ people - all your students are people. Not all people _appreciate_ being herded around like cattle. You're here to be a _teacher_ , not a dictator. Acting otherwise will just cause problems that we can't afford."

"A dictator, was I?" Charles hisses bitterly. "And what are you, Erik?"

"A pragmatist," Erik snaps back, and turns his gaze back to the papers, a pen from the cup of stationery at Charles' desk floating over to hover over his fingers. 

Furious, Charles considers leaving, wheeling back to his room to sleep, but he knows he's too angry for rest, and too heartsick for introspection, so he takes a slow, harsh breath instead, and tries to concentrate on the papers.

He doesn't remember dozing off, but in his daze he remembers being moved, being lifted, his shoes pulled off, a sheet tugged to his shoulders, comfort and warmth, and before Charles drifts away to sleep, he thinks he feels, briefly, the ghost of a touch, a soft press of lips, perhaps, high up against his temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think in the comics, Alex is actually Scott's younger brother, but in movieverse, it sure looks like he's the older brother... so I've left that as it is. As to Toad, Mort's profile is the one linked to the DoFP wiki... so I'll just leave that as Mort.


	3. Chapter 3

I.

Another familiar face comes by half a week into Providence's extremely rocky start as an all-ages mutant school: Charles had been simultaneously trying to calm a child down such that she would retract her porcupine-like quills, shout down an eight-year-old boy precariously attached to the high ceiling above through suckers on his feet and stop another boy from blowing opaque bubbles onto everyone's faces when a faint breeze kicks up in the room.

When Charles' hair settles, the gecko-toed boy is on the ground, looking startled, the bubble child has bubbles all over his arms and feet, and a the porcupine girl has a variety of brightly coloured origami hats attached to her longest quills. There's dead silence for a long moment, as Charles glances quickly to the silver-haired, visored boy grinning at him from a corner, then the porcupine girl starts to giggle, and the rest of his class follows, clapping and laughing with delight.

It's the first that they've all laughed like this, together, and Charles sinks back in his wheelchair with sheer relief and pleasure as Pietro zips up to his side. "Hey-hey-again, you," he grins, irrepressible as ever. "Y'know, I had to tell Mum what we did, in the Pentagon, and she grounded me like _forever_. Forever- _forever_."

"And so you came here instead?" Charles asks dryly. 

"Hank called the house, he was worried. We left Mum a note and zipped out." Pietro shrugs. "We're safer here."

"We?"

"Oh. Right. _Wanda_ , she's outside, just in case, sec," Pietro seems to disappear, then he abruptly reappears beside Charles, a slender, walnut-haired girl carefully braced in his arms. The girl doesn't even blink, and she smiles hesitantly at Charles, dressed in a gray frock and worn shoes. "Sec. Bags." Pietro zips away again, and reappears with two duffle bags slung over his shoulder. "This is my sis, Wanda. We're twins, but I'm taller right now, because I do everything faster."

Wanda rolls her eyes, and extends one hand gracefully, with an odd elegance for her age. "Wanda Maximoff. And my brother, Pietro. He's trying to convince himself that his name is really 'Peter', but we all know better."

"Pleased to meet you, Wanda. And Pietro." Charles says gently. "I'm glad that you're both safe. If you could meet up with Hank and get assigned to a-"

He's interrupted by a sudden wail from the porcupine girl. One of the other young children - a boy with the ability to breathe underwater, as far as Charles can tell - has been flicking at the origami hats stuck on her quills, darting out of the way and catcalling whenever the girl tries to turn. Pietro tilts his head, but Wanda holds up a hand, and steps over lightly, leaning down.

She's a small girl herself, and doesn't need to lean far as she holds out her hand. "Abracadabra," Wanda says softly, and the origami paper hats disappear from the quills and reappear in her palm. She grins far too quickly for Charles to be sure whether this had been the result that Wanda had intended - but the effect is immediate: the children cluster around her excitedly, clamouring for another trick. 

"Short distance teleportation?" Charles asks Pietro, who shakes his head. "Telekinesis?"

"Nope. No idea. Things that she wants to happen tend to happen." 

The concept of an ability such as that is so fascinating that for a moment Charles nearly forgets the immediate benefit of Pietro's presence - at least, until one of the flight-capable children gets so excited that he accidentally floats up towards the ceiling, squeaking in alarm. Pietro disappears abruptly, and reappears on the ground, the boy held carefully, depositing him beside Charles and grinning.

"Very good, Pietro," Charles says wryly. "Once you get settled in, perhaps you could do another favour for me."

"Sure, why not?" Pietro shrugs, with a sharp grin. "First favour _seriously_ messed up the world, second favour... let's see what else we could do. Shoot. Go. Who're we stealing now?" 

"Not something like that. The facility needs supplies. Fresh food, for one. Fruits, bread, jam... everything. Drinks. Clothes, toiletries, washing liquid, toys, books and pencils... we have some basic supplies, and I have a foraging team, but-"

"Stealing for the greater good? Why not." Pietro seems amused. "As long as it's really the greater good this time. Where's the other guy? The scary one?"

"Erik? He's out on a-"

"Logan." 

"Oh... he's around, just... a little different." Charles wonders whether to try and explain Logan's current differences, then decides not to. "He's suffering from memory loss after tangling with Erik. Best to avoid him for now if you can." 

"Right. So. Rooms, bags, then I get to steal _all_ the stuff." Pietro is already seeming to jump from Charles' right to his left, brimming with his usual impatience. "In the name of love and peace. _Awesome_."

"Yes, please. Hank might have a list of requests. And - oh - about food, get _real_ food, please, not biscuits and cakes." 

"But think about how fun this place would be if everyone was high on sugar, man," Pietro suggests, smirking, and disappears in a flurry of displaced air with the duffel bags even as Charles starts to voice a retort. 

"He'll do fine," Wanda says softly, touching Charles' shoulder. Her expression is oddly tense, and as he glances up at her, Charles can hear the brush of her surface thoughts, a memory of a television broadcast, a focus on Erik; then another memory, that of Mrs Maximoff, her face pale with horror.

"Thank you for your help with the children," Charles says in response, with a quick smile. "My usual assistants are at class themselves. As you and Pietro might soon be."

"Pietro may not be one to sit quietly for classes," Wanda's mouth curves briefly into a grin. "But I think I should be a fair enough student for the both of us, and I'll be happy to help out with anything else."

"You seem good with the children," Charles grins encouragingly. "I'm afraid I've been too ragged and tired of late to give them to attention that they need."

"Kids? Kids are easy. We could just all play a game. Hopscotch, if you have chalk, or skipping rope."

Charles almost points out that this is _training_ , not recreation time, but hesitates. He already has the measure of all of the children, and unlike the older students whom Charles was used to, these far younger ones have not the energy or mental concentration required for anything truly too rigorous. He's been floundering through this week, trying to conceive of a simpler version of the training programmes he had drawn up for the older students: Charles had never thought of the possibility that he would ever have to take in very young students. 

And here is the solution, beautiful and simple. Of _course_. He touches Hank's mind, and gets curiosity-acknowledgement in response. Chalk will be brought up. "Hopscotch sounds like a great idea," Charles says, unable to hide his relief. 

"I used to babysit our neighbour's kids," Wanda pats his arm again. "It's really just a matter of keeping them so occupied that they fall asleep and don't break anything."

II.

"Saw _that_ crawlin' over the horizon," Logan says gruffly, into the dead silence that follows as the far-right, anti-mutant Human Trust party is sworn into the presidency and much of high office.

The children are abed, but most of the older mutants - including Alex's and Logan's teams, Charles, and even Erik - are clustered around the sole colour television plugged into the wall in the hangar that had been repurposed into a recreation room. "Restarting the Sentinel Initiative," Charles murmurs, and sinks back against his chair. He remembers only violence in the older Logan's mind where the Sentinels are concerned. Only death.

"Registration," Erik's voice is as cold and harsh as a knife. "They'll pen up all those whom we can't get to. Worse." He rubs his thumb briefly and meaningfully over the old Auschwitz prisoner tattoo on his arm, his eyes hard and dark as glass. 

"Yeah," Logan drawls, "Wonder who rocked the boat, fucked it over, set it on fire then pissed over the ashes, eh?"

"It was getting to this eventually," Erik tells Logan coolly. "Trask's Sentinel program was already in progress. He already had developed those anti-mutant sensors. And humans will be humans. Tell me, James. Has any human reacted to the sight of your claws, in all of your long life, with curiosity and wonder, perhaps? Joy?"

Logan looks away, his jaw clenching, his wrists flexing for a moment. "Maybe no one ever did," Logan says finally, flatly. "But I never killed anyone just for treatin' me different, bub."

"More _importantly_ ," Alex cuts in placatingly, "Are you guys sure that we can stay here forever? Because there's so many of us now in Providence that evacuating is going to be _real_ difficult. This is an old government blacksite, isn't it? Someone's gonna match up all the dots eventually." 

"Fair point," Logan looks around them all, scratching at his chin. "We're all fuckin' sitting ducks down here, if they find us and decide to nuke us."

"I took precautions when I first... acquired this property," Erik says briskly. "But I am aware that it is far too small to be a long-term solution to our needs, and it is not... conducive for the younger children."

"I've got a solution, maybe," Hank says tentatively, and tries visibly not to cringe when everyone looks to him. "Uh, I was hacking Trask's systems the other day, and Trask Industries has a _lot_ of offshore properties. They're all unlisted, but there's supply manifests and emails that make it pretty clear that they're all unregulated research sites, probably on an island or a rig out in international waters."

"You were hacking it for fun?" Alex asks, though he grins. "Man. Hank, I've missed you."

"Actually," Hank admits, "I was hacking it just to see if... well, you said that Trask tried to take you and your friends in after the war. You weren't the only people who were conscripted from, um, the Professor's school. You're the _only_ ones who came _back_. I wanted to find out where everyone else was since I had a bit of breathing space." 

A sinking, icy feeling starts to curl tight around Charles' heart, even as Alex slowly starts to grow pale, his other teammates looking sharply at each other. 

"Can you triangulate these sites?" Erik's voice is a deadly, ruthless calm, now. 

"I... I _could_ probably get it down to a guess," Hank says helplessly, "But the records are deliberately vague, as are their purposes, and we've got so _much_ that we're doing right now and I'm sorry I didn't think of looking earlier-"

"Slow down, Hank," Charles interrupts, and as much as he tried, his voice is unsteady: it takes him a few sharp breaths to recover. "I could take a look," he says uncomfortably. "But I've never tried to reach so far with Cerebro before."

"No," Both Hank and Erik say together in unison, and Erik scowls briefly at Hank before adding, "Not unless we have no other solution."

"We could hit up Trask Industries' existing offices," one of the few adult mutants, a flamboyant African-American named John Wraith speaks up - teleportation, Charles recalls, and a deft hand at it. "Ain't no building made that I can't get into, nice and quiet." 

"Wanna quit from the babysnatching already?" Logan smirks. "Can't say I'll be happy t'lose you off my team, Wraith, but maybe it's for the best. We'll should take it easy on Alex's gang. Let them catch up."

"Fuck you, Jimmy," Alex retorts, even as Mort makes an obscene gesture. 

"It was always my intention to take the fight to Trask Industries," Erik says quietly, flatly. "Perhaps now is as opportune a time as we need."

"And abandon everyone else?" Charles demands fiercely. 

Erik frowns at him. "Any mutant still out there by this time already knows what he or she is, and the danger that he or she is in. They'll have known to go into hiding by now, or they're likely dead or captured. We also have people who are beginning to come to us on their own initiative. Reach those in hiding with Cerebro. Tell them where we are. If they've lasted this long out there without us, they're undoubtedly resourceful enough to reach us if they want to."

"But-" Alex begins, frowning. 

"As to those being arrested and detained, I presume that since Alex Summers' team has military training, they should be able to extract the detainees from their holding centres. James' team and I will concentrate on trying to destabilize the Sentinel program _and_ finding and destroying these... 'research' centres. Perhaps there are some of your old teachers and students out there who are still alive," he tells Charles, when Charles starts to open his mouth. "But they may not have much more time left."

Charles shudders, letting out a soft and shaky breath, and stares down at his hands. He can see the brutal logic of Erik's words, and he cannot avoid it. "All right," he says finally. "All right. We have a good number more staff now, and the elementary and high school programs have ironed out a lot of the hiccups. I can spend more time in Cerebro. I'll try and hide us from the... from people who might want to hurt us... for as long as I can. We can form up more search and rescue teams from the older mutants. I'll also contact the others." 

"I guess I'll keep looking through the Trask databases," Hank says doubtfully, uncomfortably. "Sorry. Maybe I should have raised this before, or tried it before, but..." He gestures helplessly around them at the hangar, at Providence in general.

"It's been a fuckin' nightmare so far?" Logan suggests, with a faint smirk, then he looks steadily over at Erik. "You're still an asshole." 

"You don't have to like me to get results," Erik retorts. "And I expect results."

III.

Unfortunately, the late Dr Trask turned out to have been far better at squirrelling away island operations than applying for Sentinel approval, and progress is agonisingly slow. Erik and his team leave for two weeks, and return mostly empty-handed, frustrated and exhausted. At least Alex and the new teams have been having better luck with rescue and retrieval operations.

"Go and rest," Charles tells Erik this time, without looking about, as he feels Erik's mind come close and stop outside his study. 

Naturally, Erik doesn't listen - he strides into Charles' study instead, blithe as you please, and rests his elbows heavily against the handles of Charles' wheelchair. Erik smells of sweat, of sun and sand, and Charles takes in a soft and shaky breath before he can help himself; Erik is leaning ever so slightly forward, and Charles can _feel_ the heat of him, the press of Erik's mind, hear the soft cadence of his breathing.

"Grading papers? Already?" Erik sounds amused. 

"Just to get a gauge of where everyone is." 

"That's possibly cruel and unusual," Erik's tone turns teasing, and Charles clenches his hand tightly over his pen, so sharply that the pen skitters a red mark over some poor student's haphazardly written answer. 

"Someone has to be firm," Charles says steadily instead. He doesn't trust himself to look up. To look back. He'll just be far too tempted to punch Erik in the mouth again. 

"Any new arrivals?"

"Just what Alex and the rest have brought in," Charles recalls quietly. "It's a hard crossing to make on your own without the right abilities, and human security's tightened up everywhere. The country's still in a state of emergency." 

He can't quite keep the reproach from his tone, and Erik snorts. "We couldn't have helped them all so quickly, even before, with just myself and two retrieval teams." 

_We wouldn't have needed to_ , Charles thinks viciously, but he takes in another harsh breath instead, glancing back at the paper and hoping that Erik would grow bored and leave him alone.

No such luck. "Charles," Erik says quietly, idly, "Have you ever wondered how much easier life might have been if we had never met?"

"Many times," Charles admits, too quickly and too sharply to be anything but raw, and Erik forces out a soft laugh. "I would've still been in _Oxford_ , lecturing ranks upon ranks of mostly inattentive students on the finer theories of genetics." _Raven would still be alive_. 

"You met the CIA before you met me."

"True," Charles allows. "I suppose then that I'll have led some sort of... exciting double life, perhaps. Half spy, half genetics professor." His tone is facetious, and this time, Erik's laugh seems a touch more genuine. This is partly why Erik is so dangerous, Charles thinks, feeling a little dizzy. Erik's charisma is almost as powerful a weapon as Erik's abilities themselves. 

"While I," Erik says, his tone just as bland, "Would have contented myself with just Shaw's death. Killed or have been killed."

"And what would you have done if you had killed him?" Charles asks, wary of Erik's strange mood. "Gone away? Retired, with a nice farm? Raised chickens?"

"I met a woman in between losing and picking up Shaw's scent, years before. It was..." Erik hesitates, and adds, "Pleasant. While it lasted." 

Erik's answer is so unexpected that Charles can't help himself - he half-turns in the wheelchair, looking up into Erik's face. Erik looks... rueful, Charles thinks. Pensive. His mind is a hum of old images, a small European town, with slate gray rooftops, a wide field, dotted in the distance with small cows. It's so disconcertingly idyllic that Charles can only stare.

"You could still go back," Charles finds himself saying. "To her. To all that."

Erik's expression grows still. "She was human," Erik says, his tone neutral as he straightens up.

" _Erik_ -"

"For better or for worse, Charles," Erik says quietly, "You _did_ set my feet on this path. I cared for nothing but vengeance once. You forced me to open my eyes. To care for others than myself. To understand that my gifts are not a privilege, but a responsibility." 

"I..." Charles trails off, utterly incredulous. "By _God_ , Erik, you _dare_ accuse _me_ of-"

" _Think_ ," Erik snaps, "If you want, _look_." 

And Charles does, he _does_ look, out of wild impulse and sudden outrage at the sheer _gall_ of Erik's suggestion, that _Charles_ had been responsible for what Erik had become. He looks, and he's not gentle about it, sorting through Erik's memories, cycling through the last ten years, then the ten before that. It's an invasion, but Erik _lets him in_ , doesn't make a sound, and this is like that moment in the Pentagon, when all his frustration and his fury had welled up under all the cracks that had webbed over the remnant brittle veneer of his self-control; like the plane, when he had lost his temper. This is Charles hurting Erik again because he can, because he can't help it, and Erik - Erik just _takes_ it.

Again.

 _I did drop a girder on you_ , Erik tells him, half impression, half words, and Charles realizes that he's projecting, bleeding over, and it's this subversively _easy_ because Erik has always - Erik has always been this open to him, like no one else has been. And Charles had used that once, had forced Erik out of his cycle of violence and retribution, and thrown him into something greater than the both of them.

Something worse.

Miserably, Charles withdraws, trapped and buried under the awful truth. He _had_ shaped Erik into what Erik had become, so very recklessly. He _had_ honed Erik's abilities. All because he had assumed - Gods - he had assumed that Erik would understand, implicitly, that Charles' was the right path, that he would follow Charles. That Erik would never leave. That he would never use his abilities for anything but the greater good. 

And in a way, Erik _had_. Erik had not been the first to consciously step back from their partnership. And as to his powers... Charles realizes now how blindly naive he had always been, to assume that Erik's _concept_ of the greater good was in itself informed by compassion. Erik had no compassion. Kindness and mercy and empathy had been whetted from him in the camps: his had not been a merely unhappy childhood, surrounded by wealth but neglected and alone. Erik had not had time to have a childhood. For the formative years of his life he had lived no better than as a caged animal had lived, waiting for the abattoir. 

This did not forgive what Erik had wrought, what he had done to the world and their kind, to _Raven_ , but for the first time, Charles began to understand, slowly, that Charles _himself_ had to bear some responsibility for what had happened. That perhaps turning away from Erik and losing himself in his own pain had been, in itself, a mistake. Erik was now a weapon, but the hand that had made him into the weapon that he was now - had belonged to _Charles_.

"I'm sorry that we ever met," Charles says tightly, and Erik's eyes narrow, as he starts to straighten up from the chair, but he stops when Charles reaches over to grasp his wrist. "But we can no longer afford to keep looking back."

"No," Erik agrees softly, and his palm slips up in Charles' grip, until their hands are clasped. It is a truce, of sorts.


	4. Chapter 4

I.

Alex's team had managed two highly successful strikes on small detainment camps, and perhaps had grown too daring - the third had almost been a total disaster. Spyke was broadcasting his pain loudly enough for Charles to feel it in his study, but by the time he wheels out to the outfitted main infirmary, he's already shut out, a makeshift sign scrawled on a torn sheet of paper and hung over the door: _Surgery in progress_.

"Hey, Prof," Alex greets him shakily, sitting on a fold-up chair outside the infirmary. One of Hank's assistants, a first year medical student with no apparent mutation other than a fine sheen of pale orange scales over his arms and back, was occupied in briskly inspecting Mort's arm - there was an ugly gash that ran from wrist to elbow. Ink hovers in the background, pale and trembling. 

"This is going to need to be cleaned and stitched," the assistant tells Mort firmly.

"I'm staying here," Mort growls.

"Mortimer, please," Charles says gently, but firmly. "This is a public corridor. Sometimes we have children pass by."

Mort wavers at that, but Alex tells him, "Once Hank comes out with news I'll tell you all about it. Don't worry. Hank's the smartest person I've ever met. Spyke's gonna be _fine_." 

Reluctantly, Mort goes quietly, and Ink sits down in the vacated seat, head clasped between his hands. "It's bad, Prof," Alex says softly, when Mort is pulled into a room. "When they saw they weren't gonna win, they started shooting at their prisoners. There were _kids_ in the cages. Spyke got in the way. If he hadn't scavenged some kevlar off our last hit..." 

Charles nods grimly. One of the larger rooms close to 'Surgery' had been turned into a triage zone. None of the newcomers had been too critically injured, thanks to Spyke, but it was chaos in there, and Hank's tiny medical staff was overwhelmed. Most of the injuries were from shrapnel or stray bullets. Charles was trying to help to dampen their pain with his abilities, but it was a near thing just to hold on under so much fear and agony. 

"That's... they panicked?"

"Nope. They were trying to create a distraction. Trying to make off with these." Alex nudges two large boxes at his feet, and his face goes still, even as Ink lets out a harsh sound. 

Awkwardly, Charles wheels himself over, opening one box. They're filing boxes, he notes, stacked densely with alphabetised files. He pulls one up and random, opening the folder, and... it feels as though the world was dropping away around him, dulled with sheer horror and revulsion. He's looking at a large photograph, bluish in tint, likely taken in a chilled room - a corpse of a young girl with two curling ram's horns above her ears. Over her naked flesh, under her shoulders, are huge autopsy sutures. Bile rises sharp and sour in Charles' throat, and he has to take several high, brittle breaths.

"Sean's in there too, Prof," Alex says, and now his voice is cracking. " _Everyone_. Everyone we _knew_ in the school." 

Charles' hands are trembling so much that he's sure that he's starting to project, but he can't stop himself, he can't - the muffled cries from the triage room heighten as Charles' control starts to slip and project, and Ink lets out a stifled cry of pain even as Alex sits bolt upright in alarm. "Professor... hey! _Professor!_ " 

It takes several deep breaths and meditative exercises before Charles manages out of sheer will to force back some semblance of control over his powers, to reach back over those in triage who needed him, to close the folder and put it back in the box. The world seems blurred and dull around him, and it takes him another few moments before Charles realizes, dimly, that he's weeping, right out in public, like a child.

"Hey," Alex says anxiously, kneeling at his side, his hands warm and tight on Charles' shoulders. "God, I'm sorry I jumped that on you. I should'a _thought_. I never think. I'm sorry. Hey. Breathe."

"Thank you, Alex," Charles says, and his voice is brittle. "These are all Trask Industry records?"

"I don't know. I didn't look through all of them," Alex says grimly. "I guess Erik was right, huh?"

"He was?"

"The humans started this," Alex says flatly, and there's anger in his voice, hatred, even, and Charles stares at him in alarm. 

"Alex-"

"You... you can't keep preaching peace and solidarity and acceptance with this," Alex waves a hand angrily at the box. "With what they're _doing_ to us out there! I... all right. I'm sorry I shouted. I know that you're dealing with a lot right now." Alex pats Charles' hand, then squeezes it when Charles doesn't move. "I swear, this time, I'm not gonna be just some dumb kid sitting around waiting for you to help me. We're going to make this right. You just deal with what you have to. We'll do the rest." 

Behind Alex's shoulder, Ink nods. "There has to be others in here who can help us." 

"We won't take little kids," Alex says quickly, as Charles starts to frown. "Or anyone who'll be dangerous to us and to themselves. But I know there are people in here with powers that they _are_ in control of, and who can help. That superfast kid, for example."

"Pietro's a _boy_ ," Charles says, aghast. "He's so _young_."

"Not much younger than I was, when you took me to Cuba. And he's also effectively immune to bullets. I heard him telling everyone a couple days back about how he helped you, and Logan, and Hank bust Erik out of the Pentagon. Mort's out of the count for now, Spyke too. I need more help. Before more people out there end up like the people in there." Alex points at the boxes.

Warily, Charles stares at Alex, then he exhales. "All right. You're right. We can't give up on the detainees. I'll give you a list of everyone who might be remotely suitable to an... extraction mission. But we are not going to conscript anyone, understand?"

"Prof," Alex says flatly, "Once word of this gets out, I'm not gonna need to conscript _anyone_. Hey," he adds, more gently, when Charles shudders convulsively. "You're always gonna be my teacher, Professor. I owe you big. But we all had to grow up sometime."

II.

Spyke survives surgery - barely - and Charles decides to let Hank sleep instead of talking to him about the autopsies. He rosters volunteers to help relieve the exhausted triage staff, checks on tutors and classwork, presides over a minor conflict between a pair of students and a baseball, and finally crawls away to his bed to sleep, leaving the boxes buried under paperwork in his study. He works so that he doesn't grieve.

Charles arrives in his study at daybreak to find Hank already looking grimly through the boxes. "Morning, Professor," Hank says quietly, glancing at him. Blue quills of fur have pushed through his cheeks, but Hank's breathing is still calm.

"Alex told you about the boxes?"

"Nope. But I felt your pain when I was in surgery. I asked Alex what that was about when I woke up. Wanted to know what made you project. He didn't want to tell me, but I got it out of Ink." Gently, Hank places the file that he was holding back inside the box. "My God." 

"Are there..." Charles has to take in a slow breath before he can go on. "Are there locations in the files?"

"No. Just numbers. I can go through Trask's systems again, and the other files that Alex retrieved, see if anything matches-"

"Get a few volunteers to do it," Charles disagrees. "You're run as ragged as I am." Hank had shouldered as much responsibility as he could over the day-to-day running of the school as he could, just to free Charles for longer and longer Cerebro sessions. 

"Erik's... not going to react well to this," Hank adds hesitantly.

"You mean he can do worse than what he's already done?" Charles asks bitterly, his lip curled. 

"So far nothing that he's done since we let him out of the Pentagon has been done out of vengeance-"

"He _killed_ the President and his aides! He killed _Raven_." 

"Raven was an accident, he told me." Hank's expression is tight. "And I'll still never forgive him for it. What I'm saying, Professor, is that when Erik sees this," he taps his knuckles on the edge of the nearest box, "It might go _really_ badly." 

"What am I supposed to do? I can't hide the files from him. The whole of Providence knows that Alex brought back autopsy files."

"You could talk to him."

"He doesn't listen to me," Charles says bitterly. "Life would have been _so_ much easier if he did." 

"You could make him listen to you," Hank points out.

"No. I won't use my powers that way. I'm not sure that I can, without hurting-"

"No! Not like that," Hank says quickly. "I mean, it's obvious that Erik really values your opinion - even if he doesn't always follow it. He goes straight to your study whenever he comes back from a trip. He gave you his helmet. He isn't running the show, Charles. You _both_ are. That's what everyone thinks, anyway."

"I know," Charles admits wearily. "Yes. God knows we have more important things to do than escalate hostilities against the government. Erik should be able to accept that easily enough. But once we're in a safer location..."

Hank nods. "Big next step, though." 

Charles understands. All they can do right now is to take the future one small step at the time. He lets out a shaky laugh, then forces himself to calm down. "Tell me how the patients are doing."

Hank's prepared for this - he has detailed descriptions of each injured patient, particularly for Spyke. "Spyke's not yet out of danger," Hank concludes, "But he's extremely fit, and he's young. Pietro stole us really _great_ hospital equipment and the best medical drugs and supplies. I'm sure he'll pull through." 

"You did well," Charles says wryly. "First surgery patient."

"I've been studying medicine ever since... since Cuba," Hank reminds Charles. "For your spine. Not just serums. But yeah," Hank lets out a huge breath. "Man. I was so scared. I kept thinking that I was gonna fuck up, that I was gonna mess him up. But I could feel you there, Professor. You kept Spyke calm, you kept the others calm, you were doing your part. I had to do mine." 

"What I did was a parlour trick. _You_ saved a life." Charles wheels up next to Hank and claps him on the arm, and Hank grins at him. "You should take today off."

"Me? Oh no. Too much to do," Hank shakes his head. "I'm going to go back for a final check on all the patients, then I've got to run to the class that I'm meant to be teaching." 

Charles dithers for much of the morning, doing his own rounds, trying to avoid thinking about the boxes, sitting in as Alex gathers up a roomful of possible replacements for the team members out for the count. As he had predicted, no one in the room backed out: worse, there were volunteers clamouring to get _selected_. Alex's brother Scott had been one of them. 

Pietro's far too happy to have been named first to Alex's team, unhappy as his sister clearly is. Wanda says nothing though, even as Pietro buzzes around the room and eventually skips up next to the Professor. "Better than stealing!" Pietro tells Charles softly, vibrating with excitement. Charles returns him a wan smile, but it doesn't touch Pietro's enthusiasm.

Alex picks two more mutants for his team: a slender boy with the ability to kinetically charge items and an older illusionist, to the disappointment of everyone else. "But I want everyone else to keep training with the Professor," Alex concludes. "Because we're gonna need more teams. And we're probably gonna need a bench team, just in case of injuries. Remy-"

"We goin' with code names, yea?" The slender boy grins. "Then I'm Gambit."

"Mastermind," the illusionist volunteers, and scowls at a couple of sniggers in the room. 

" _Thank you_ , Alex," Charles cuts in firmly. "Now-"

"Why aren't there any girls in the team?" one of the girls in the room objects. 

" _Because_ for now I need a hardhitter to replace Spyke. That's Remy," Alex jerks his thumb at Gambit, "And someone to run support in place of Mort - that's Jason. You're _all_ in the team, just not right now."

" _In any case_ ," Charles cuts over the grumbling sharply, "Alice, thank you for your insight, and I _trust_ you've been keeping up to date with your armour practice. Liddy, you melted a hole through two plates yesterday during the washing roster-"

"Someone startled me!" Liddy objects vehemently.

"Wanda, I'm still not entirely sure how your abilities work, and neither are you... and Trish, you still get distracted far too easily for your refractive ability to hold for more than two people at a time for too long. All of you in this room have _potential_. Some of you just need more practice. And besides," Charles adds briskly, "I need people _here_ as well as on the outside. In case you have all forgotten, we have in our care as at this date forty-five _children_. _Their_ safety is paramount."

"Sorry, Prof," Alice mumbles, even as the rest of the people in the room nod and subside. 

"And that's why on top of your usual training," Alex adds, "You're all now also on a guard roster. We're going to do a watch on the perimeter, especially when the Professor's resting. We're gonna map out this entire facility and run evacuation drills. We're at _war_ , guys. It ain't about getting even. It's about surviving. _Especially_ the kids."

Alex _has_ grown up, Charles notes, and he finds that he _is_ proud of that, even if Alex's new path is a little different from what Charles would have liked. "Don't take unnecessary risks," Charles tells them all, quietly. "And most of all, we need you all to stay calm, stay alert, and protect the others. The people in this room are the only - older - ones with powerful active mutations, abilities that can make a real difference if it comes down to a skirmish. But remember, your powers are not a privilege. They're a _responsibility_." 

Those are Erik's words, Charles thinks belatedly, but those gathered in the room nod attentively. He leaves Alex to organise the duty rosters, wheeling himself out instead to check on a couple of classes at random before heading down - finally - to Cerebro. He's put this off long enough.

He finds Erik's mind easily, slips in with a polite touch to alert Erik of his presence. Erik and the others are holed up in an unoccupied house in Detroit, and at another touch, Erik walks to an empty room, allowing Charles to project himself forward in space. It's an odd dual impression: all he really does see and sense is through Erik's eyes, like a mirror, but he does feel Erik's curiosity and - there - _pleasure_ at the unexpected contact: then wariness. Erik's team is just on the verge of mounting an attack on Trask Industries' Detroit offices.

"Is something wrong, Charles?" Erik asks anxiously.

"Not exactly." Charles takes in a slow breath. It's easier to make the connection this way than risk unloading too much into Erik's mind. "Alex's last hit was messy. Spyke's in critical but stable condition. Mort also suffered a very bad gash that's left him out of commission for now. He's got an infection, but Hank's confident that he'll be feeling better soon."

He can't actually see Erik's face, but he can feel Erik's concern and anger. "What about the prisoners?"

"They're all injured, but safe. Their... their captors _fired on them_ , Erik. It was a distraction. They were trying to escape with records. Trask Industries records." Charles pauses, hesitating for a long moment more. "There were two boxes of autopsy records. Erik. I'm sorry. Emma, Azazel, Riptide... they're all gone, Erik."

Erik's rage flashes bright enough for Charles to feel a hum of metal, like a sixth sense all around Erik, the bright whirl of two metal spheres, floating around him, the flight fixtures in the room, the pipes, the window fittings, chair legs, door hinges. It's exhilarating and frightening at the same time. God. To have so much _power_. 

Slowly, Erik calms down, and only because concern pulls back to the fore. "And your friends, Charles?"

"They're all gone too," Charles whispers, and he can't hide his pain even if he tried. " _Erik_ , calm down, Erik," he adds sharply, when temper flares hot again in Erik's mind. "I need you to be _calm_."

Surprise blooms over Erik's mind, interest, a phrase, _I need you_ , quickly snatched away then Erik asks, "What do you want me to do now?"

"I just wanted to let you know. And give you a few numbers. Hank thinks that they're probably the code numbers for the facilities. Maybe you could keep an eye out for documentation that contains them." Charles rattles them off. "And Erik," he adds hesitantly, "I want you to keep looking. For a place where we could all be safe. For a way to get us there. Not-"

"I know," Erik cuts in impatiently, and though his rage hasn't lessened, it's clearly under Erik's control. "I do understand priorities. Anything else?"

"Be careful," Charles says, all unthinking, and he touches surprise in Erik's mind again, surprise and pleasure. Hurriedly, Charles breaks the connection, feeling oddly flushed and embarrassed, letting out a slow breath. One matter down. 

He spends the rest of the Cerebro session locating more prisoner transports, and Alex is waiting for him in the outermost hangar when Charles comes up to him with paper and pen. "Sorry I'm late," Charles apologizes. "Let me write down the-"

"You drop info into Erik's mind, don't you, Prof?" Alex inquires. "Why don't you drop it to all of us? We can take it. That way we can discuss as a group what to hit next. See if we can do a few before having to come back." 

"If you're all certain," Charles says doubtfully, and lets out a wry laugh when Alex grins at him. "I've never... Erik is the first person whose mind I've ever 'dropped info' into, other than - other than Raven." It takes effort to say her name, and Alex's grin drops slowly. "You may all find it a rather uncomfortable experience. It's rather different from just projected speech."

"Hey, I'm ready," Alex says instantly. 

"And me," Pietro adds quickly. 

"And I," Mastermind nods. So does Ink, and Remy grins in return. 

"Ev'ryone knows that you're the one keeping us all hidden down here, mon ami. You're the one who found me," Remy shrugs. "You done no one anything but good with your powers." 

This is _acceptance_ , Charles realizes slowly, something that a part of him had always taken for granted that no one would want of him, used to wariness at best and concern at worst, a part of his abilities that he had always kept carefully guarded from everyone but Raven - and Erik. It's a heady feeling, careful as he is when he actually does make the drop. Only Pietro grimaces a little, but he's the first to look to Alex.

"Go for the closest? Or the biggest?"

"The one with the most little kids," Alex decides. "West coast it is. Stop worrying, Prof. We'll be back before you know it."


	5. Chapter 5

I.

The hangar had only just been emptied after Wraith's hasty forewarning when Wraith jumped Erik and his team back into the facility. At the sight of them, Charles lets out a gasp of horror, even as Hank starts instinctively towards Logan, who looks as though he had just taken a liberal roll in blood and gore, blood-spattered from shoulder to knee, though Logan looks more annoyed than anything else.

"All healed up," Logan says dismissively, and grins sharply at Charles' expression. "This is nothin'. I stepped on a land mine once, in the last World War. Now _that_ fuckin' sucked. Pity about my favourite jacket, though."

"What happened?" Charles turns to Erik, his gaze jumping to the small, limp form of a little girl, cradled carefully in Erik's arms, dressed in a small gray surgical gown, barefoot, her arms riddled with needle tracks. Erik strides over to Hank, handing the girl carefully to him, and Charles grabs Hank's arm to still him before Hank starts to go. 

The girl's hair has been shaved off, and she's thin and deathly pale, her breathing shallow, but Charles _knows_ her. He's seen her before, older, tall and graceful and beautiful, her memory infused with a vast depth of love, a shining candle within the dark blanket of Logan's memories and a lifetime of war and bloodshed. Charles knows her smile: he knows her voice, her laughter, her wit. And he knows how she had died. 

"Jean Grey," he murmurs, painfully relieved.

Two out of three.

"You know her?" Erik begins, but when Charles sends Erik a thought-impression of reading Logan's mind, Erik nods curtly and promptly changes the subject. "She's physically unhurt, as far as I can tell. She was kept restrained in a laboratory deep under the Trask Detroit complex. She was wearing some sort of... helmet over her head that restricted her powers, I think. Logan took it off and she lashed out."

"Understatement of the year," Logan grunts. "That little tyke got me good. Punched a coupl'a of pencils into my head, one into my lungs, put a clipboard through my guts. Wraith managed to sedate her before she decided to take my head off with a gurney or somethin'. Might want to keep her sedated until you talk to her," Logan glances at Charles, with a wiggle of his fingers beside his head.

"She had to have been really frightened," Charles says apologetically, even as Hank blanches at the matter-of-fact way Logan had just described his injuries. "She's very young."

"Hey, I wasn't blamin' her. I'm not mad." Logan shrugs. "Poor kid: I think they messed her up good. 'Least we got the bastards."

Charles starts to frown. "You killed everyone?"

Logan bares his teeth. "Remember what I said about killing, Wheels? I don't kill people just for looking at me funny, but I sure as fuck am happy to introduce people who experiment on little girls to my claws. Now if you 'scuse me, _Princess_ , I'm gonna go get changed." 

Charles has nothing that he can really say to that. With a sigh, he says, "Wraith, could you take Logan to his rooms? I'm not sure if there are still any children roaming the corridors." Wraith, nods, and takes Logan's hand, disappearing. "Hank, if you could make Miss Grey comfortable, but keep her sedated in a room please? Get one of your assistants to watch her at all times." 

"Right." Hank nods, shifting Jean in his arms before leaving. 

"You can take it from here?" The last member of Erik's team, Fred Dukes, glances over to Erik. "Because I think I could _kill_ for a good steak." 

"We don't have steak right now," Charles recalls, apologetic again, "Alex poached Pietro away onto his team, I'm afraid, so we're rather low on those kinds of perishables. But the kitchen should still be able to make you a burger and chips. The bread's made fresh by Max and Wanda."

"Burger it is," Fred grins, and stamps away towards the exit. 

Only then does Charles look at the two large metal cubes that Erik is levitating behind him. Judging by their smoothness and symmetry, they were obviously shaped by Erik's gift, and as Charles frowns, unsure of what to make of the cubes, Erik says mildly, "Your study?" 

"All right." Charles starts to wheel himself around, but Erik steps over, pressing his palms over the handlebars. Irritated, Charles glances up at Erik, but hesitates at the tense look on Erik's face. Instead of prompting an argument in public, Charles settles back instead, allowing Erik to push him along. The students and staff are already trickling back into the hangar, and Erik nods at the few who greet him shyly or with awe. 

Hank had told Charles that the community in Providence thought that they were being led by Charles _and_ Erik, but it's clear to Charles that there's a difference in perception. For all his sins, Erik has become some sort of semi-heroic figure to them, a protector, a general and a commander. 

As to Charles - all the teachers who walk by touch his mind, small queries, or just seeking reassurance, and some of the students do, as well. His is a role of a teacher, perhaps something like a statesman, but it's certainly not a role that seems to inspire the awe that Erik is attracting. Charles isn't sure now whether he wields more influence among them all, or if Erik does. He isn't sure if he wants to know. 

Once they're in Charles' study, Erik closes the door with a gesture, and his hands slip down to grasp Charles' shoulders, almost tight enough to hurt. "Erik," Charles protests, and Erik doesn't respond for a long moment. Then the boxes open up on the floor, their lids lifting seamlessly off to slide aside soundlessly, settling neatly on the ground.

More files. Charles feels his stomach start to drop. "Not autopsies," Erik says quickly, stepping over to one and picking up a file, placing it on Charles' lap. "Look."

Charles opens the folder, and sucks in a hard breath. It's about _Erik_. A photograph from the arrest, a grainy photo of the submarine being lifted out of the water in Cuba, records in German stamped with the Nazi swastika, and some sort of factsheet, similar to the ones he had seen in the autopsy folders, listing a description, powers, known associates, known locations and more. For one brief, awful moment, Charles imagines an autopsy photograph, on top of it all, Erik pale and blue, great sutures on his chest, and he has to swallow hard and shallowly to fight the urge to throw up. 

"It isn't just me," Erik says quietly. "Someone must have talked. From your school, or perhaps Azazel, or Emma. Your file is in there too. And Hank's, Alex's, Toad... there's also Logan's, though his is very sketchy and doesn't name him: just a file of rumours from the past World Wars of at least one clawed mutant with healing powers. Seems he might have a brother, though he wouldn't say." 

"My _file_?" Charles asks blankly. "But I wiped Moira's mind-"

"Someone _talked_. They took your staff, remember? Your students?" Erik's tone is flat, hard. "You're lucky that they probably thought that it was too dangerous to come for you in Westchester. If they had come while you were taking that damned _serum_ -" 

"Or too difficult," Charles says quickly, not in the mood to get harangued any further about his serum use. "It's easier to make a little girl disappear than the heir to the Xavier fortune." He rubs at his eyes, slumping back in his wheelchair. "God. What a nightmare." 

"One other thing," Erik adds. "I have no idea how Trask Industries has been measuring abilities, but I've seen the grading system, and it seems fairly accurate to date. He graded us - and the mutants he experimented on - with levels of power. 'C' at the lowest, passive minor mutations, moving on to 'A' for powerful active mutations, like Emma, then 'S' - people like you and me, who have far stronger abilities. This little girl, Jean Grey, was listed as 'omega'. You've seen her future. All her file says under her abilities is 'TK'. What can she do?"

Charles studies Erik warily. He had seen Jean's future. He had seen an older, colder Erik, using her, manipulating her, until Logan had no choice but to murder the one person he had loved most in all of his long life. He waits too long - Erik's expression hardens. "She's very powerful, isn't she? Stronger than us?"

"I don't know what damage Trask or his successors might have done to her-" 

"What can she do, Charles?" When Charles doesn't immediately answer, Erik's lip curls. "After all this, and you still do not trust me."

"It's not... that." Charles says quickly, and decides to settle for the truth - edited. "She's a telepath, and a telekinetic. Erik, I don't want to tell you what I've seen in her future. She might pick it out of your mind by accident. As it is, I'm going to have to work on my own shielding before I try to help her."

"She didn't survive Logan's future, did she?" Erik guesses, even as some of the tension leaves him. 

Charles nods slowly. "At the point when Logan is sent back to us, there are only a handful of mutants left. I know what happened to all of the rest whom Logan knew. Many of them did not have... gentle deaths, Erik. Logan was carrying a lot of pain."

"That will change." Erik presses his hand over Charles' wrist, squeezing lightly. "Can you handle Jean by yourself? If she is that strong?"

"I have to try." Tentatively, Charles presses his other hand over Erik's: Erik's skin is warm to the touch, firm. "What will you be doing next?"

"You said that humans fired on the contained mutants when Alex tried to retrieve them. Logan, Wraith and Fred will pick perhaps one or two others from the facility and go back to retrieval missions." Erik decides. "We can't afford more children being brought to Trask Industries and turned into test subjects like Jean." His expression hardens again. "You were right. We can't just abandon the others and hope for the best."

"You _were_ hitting the Trask facilities to try and prevent - and rescue - people like Jean," Charles reminds him gently. 

"Many of the facilities that we destroyed only contained a small skeletal staff. Trask Industries seemed to have been concentrating its resources on fast-tracking Sentinel production, not research. Up until Detroit, we were wasting our time."

"Surely Detroit means that you should keep looking-"

"I am. There was a sheaf of numbers in the lab. Seemingly meaningless at first, but some of the numbers match up to what you've told me before. The rest is probably an encrypted location - or so I hope. I'll pass it to Hank and see if he can crack it. Once he does, I intend to visit these sites myself."

"The government-"

"Doesn't know about them. Government archives and documentation sites were among the first that we checked." Erik smiles thinly. "Subtly. Wraith is a very good thief."

"So you'll attack these offshore sites by yourself?" Charles says doubtfully. "They may be prepared by now. Alloy projectiles and worse."

"I am aware of the possibility," Erik says dryly. "But we have to move soon, or we'll reach capacity."

"And after that?" Charles dares to ask. "What then?"

"After that," Erik's tone goes cold, "We shall see."

"Erik-"

"Sitting in a small concrete box all these years has taught me patience, Charles." Erik says quietly. "And during all that time, as they kept me from my powers, took my _friends_ from me, one by one, in the end, all I had left to me was hatred." 

Solitary confinement, Charles thinks belatedly, as Erik straightens up, away from him. Isolation. He remembers reading reports about it, complaints from the psychiatric community, hinting at the high incidence of prisoners that became mentally ill in supermax prisons that had isolation units. PTSD, uncontrollable feelings of rage and fear, insomnia, paranoia, hypersensitivity... how long had Erik been inside that cell, for a crime that he did not commit? Ten years? 

"Erik," Charles says, and Erik hesitates by the door, coming back to his side. "May I?" He gestures at his temple. 

Curious, Erik nods, kneeling down beside the wheelchair. Charles presses a palm to Erik's temple, and steps in, careful this time, subtle. Yes. Erik had not killed John Kennedy: four shots had been fired, from a high powered rifle, and Erik had only been able to deflect three. He looks further, more gently, sensing Erik's curiosity, going deeper, and there, God, he can see the damage now. He had been here before, to help Erik find the balance between his anger and a state of serenity: the balance is now dangerously brittle. Erik hasn't been sleeping well at all, his mind focused on what he had lost, on the need to keep Providence safe, on the war, on the rage and fear he had felt when he had first seen Charles' 'file' and-

 _Peace_ , Charles tells him. _I'm still here_. 

_For now_ , Erik tells him: Charles is too far within Erik's mind for anything but honesty. _You'll pull away again_ , Erik accuses him, resentful, uncertain. _You did before. What are you doing?_

_I want to help you again,_ Charles suggests, though he's never done something like this before. _If you'll let me_.

It's curiosity that he senses from Erik, and trust, so Charles tries his best. He's back at his original level of competence now, after so much trial by fire, and he dulls the wounds in Erik's mind as much as he can, compartmentalising them the way time itself would, fading them to the background. _Remember good memories, hold on to them instead_ , is the charge that Charles sets for Erik's subconscious, and expected to see, again, Erik's childhood memories of his mother. 

Instead he sees himself, laughing as he tries and fails to keep up with Hank at jogging, around the school. Chess games, in his study in Westchester, and one sprawled on the steps before the Mall, another in a park as the sun starts to set. Squeezed into the back of a cab, talking to Armando; curled together on a bed as they watch Angel unfurl her wings. These are Erik's best memories now, the ones he guards most fiercely, and Charles is in _every one of them_.

"Did you find what you wanted?" Erik asks, as Charles hastily pulls back. 

"I know that you didn't shoot Kennedy," Charles concedes uncomfortably. "I should have... maybe I should have checked earlier. It would have been easy enough." His range would easily have reached Erik from outside the Pentagon. 

Erik, oddly enough, laughs. "All that time... Did you know that I _knew_ that you would be the one, eventually, who would get me out of there? Not Azazel or Riptide, not Emma, not even Raven. You were the only one who would be stubborn enough - and arrogant enough - to try."

Come to think of it, Erik had looked rather distinctly unsurprised when he had seen Charles outside the lift - at that time, Charles had put it down to shock, or something. Besides, he had been rather occupied in trying to break Erik's nose. Charles frowns at him. "That's a rather big assumption. If Logan had never come-"

"You would have left me in there forever?"

"I don't know," Charles admits. "I was busy with my school, and then..." He gestures helplessly. "The war happened."

"I may be responsible for the accident that caused your injury," Erik says evenly, "But I'm _not_ responsible for the Vietnam War, or why your school closed down. I was rather detained at the time, remember? All your pain, your anger... I didn't abandon you then, Charles - your _students_ did, your staff, and yet you resented me for it. While you left me to _rot_ , in a concrete cell, for _ten years_ , without even thinking to see if I was innocent, without caring that I received no trial. Yet I do not resent _you_ for that."

"I did get you out of there," Charles points out weakly. "Or I suppose it was mostly Pietro and Hank. I don't think that Logan and I were truly very useful. I've never really had to be very _good_ at deception." He makes a halfhearted gesture near his temple. 

"Charles, I don't blame you for my incarceration. And I appreciate the rescue effort," Erik smiles faintly. "Useless as you may have been," he adds, his smile turning into a smirk. 

Erik is _joking_ with him, the way they used to, when they were far more comfortable together, and the familiarity is so sharp that it hurts. "Next time you can save yourself, then," Charles still manages to quip, and makes a show of putting the file on his lap back on the desk. When Erik excuses himself and leaves, Charles closes his eyes, and lets out a long, unsteady breath.


	6. Chapter 6

I.

Charles' first impression is that of a void, of total nothingness, but even as the thought forms in his mind, he feels grass under his feet, breeze on his skin, the scent of pine and lavender and crushed grass, of the density of humidity before a good English rain.

The world goes from black to storm gray, then the dim indigo of a rich evening, and the depth of this reality, the _detail_ \- it's impressive. Almost frightening. Especially given that Charles is intimately familiar with this scene - it's one of _his_ memories, and he had thought himself well-shielded.

A light flares into being, so fierce that Charles instinctively shields his eyes, even within the mindscape, then it dims, and on the old elm that marked the start of the rambling woodlands which were part of the Xavier family estates, perched on a branch, is a _firebird_.

The phoenix has a slender neck, and an orange beak, its body powerful, with sleek wings that remind Charles of a hunting hawk, and a long, graceful tail, like a lyrebird. Instead of feathers, it wears fire itself: thousands of thousands of flames, small ones that meld into a blurred, ever-shifting down, to longer, sharper tongues of fire, in blues and oranges and reds, to the sweeping arcs of fire that mark its tail. It's _beautiful_ , and it does not burn the tree upon which it sits, but Charles can feel the heat of it from where he stands. 

"Jean?" Charles asks tentatively. 

_Hello_ , says the bird, all around him, curiosity-wariness-fear. Emotion is as evident as speech in the mindscape, and in Jean's mind, it seems even sharper, more visceral. Her talent is uncontrolled, Charles realizes. And he isn't sure if she is stronger than he is.

"My name is Charles Xavier," Charles continues slowly, as reassuringly as he can. "I am a friend."

 _Yes_ , the bird agrees, after a long pause. _You are a friend. You want to help._ Another pause. _You are hurt._

"No," Charles frowns a little, even as he looks instinctively down at his projected form. "Oh. You mean out there? Yes. My legs. That was an accident, an old one."

 _No_ , the bird's head shakes a little. _Inside. You are hurt inside. You have much anger. You feel helpless. It is hurting you._

"That, my friend," Charles says wryly, "Is a consequence of growing up, unfortunately." 

_I killed someone,_ the bird's voice drops, grows small. _This one._ A projection strides into being, a picture perfect simulacrum of Logan. _He tried to help me, I think._

"He isn't dead. He has a healing factor," Charles assures her. "And he isn't angry with you. I have no doubt that you will be good friends."

Another pause, then the bird nods again. _Yes. He is not dead._ Relief-curiosity. _You know two of him. An old one and the new._

Quickly, Charles slams down as much shielding as he can around his thoughts, and the bird rears up, its wings flaring in surprise. "Jean," Charles says firmly, "That's not very polite." 

_We are in_ my _mind,_ the phoenix hisses, and above, thunder rumbles across the darkened sky. _My mind! No one can touch me here! Not you, not them!_

The ground starts to ripple and rip up beneath his feet, but Charles braces himself holding up his palms. "Jean, calm down, Jean. I am your friend, remember? You said so yourself. I am your _friend_." 

_Liar!_ the bird shrieks, and abruptly, Charles is buffeted by a memory, sense-sharp: Trask, smiling as he peers into Jean's line of sight, the smell of disinfectant and soap, of metal, of starch, Trask's glasses, starting to slip down his nose. "We are going to be friends," Trask tells her, as his smile widens, and the memory slips away as the ground shudders and rocks. 

"I will be your _teacher_ ," Charles shouts as the wind kicks up around them, howling and dragging icy fingers against his skin. "I can be your _protector_. I promised!" 

All of a sudden, the wind dies down, and the phoenix's wings snap back against its back. _You promised?_ it asks, wary-curious-doubtful. 

"Another person. A... great friend of mine, someone who helped me find my way. He asked me to watch out for you." 

_Who?_

"He's gone now." Charles wonders how much more he should tell Jean, but strangely enough, the firebird subsides. 

_No one will hurt me anymore?_

"Not if I can prevent it. Let me help you, Jean. For the sake of my promise." 

_What do you want to do?_ The bird cocks its head to the side. _Waking up is hard._ Another memory kicks in, this one of Jean, curled strait-jacketed in a padded cell - some sort of mental ward, Charles realizes with horror, the scent of her own urine thick around her, the sounds of others moaning, gibbering, muffled to her left and to her right. She's been crying so hard that her eyes hurt. _I can't control the voices,_ the bird whispers. _And things move. I am haunted by demons. The priests have said this._

"No, Jean, you are not," Charles whispers, and he is weeping now, openly, stretching his hands out for her, burned by her pain. "Come here."

 _I'll burn you,_ the bird warns. _I can't control anything._

"I trust you not to hurt me. You're not hurting the tree that you're standing on." Charles points out, but he has to brace himself anyway, as the bird wings over to him, flaring its wings, and God, it is as though he is standing before a furnace, the heat searingly hot on his skin, and he tells himself that this is a projection, just a projection, and forces himself not to flinch away- 

A girl collapses into his arms, instead, warm and soft, her hair a brilliant corona of auburn red, and she smiles waveringly up at him as Charles grins and hugs her close. "See?" 

"You'll make the demons go away?" Jean asks, hugging him back, pressing her cheek against his chest.

"Jean, those objects moving, the voices you can hear - they're powers, Jean. Your powers. I have some of them too. I can hear thoughts. So can you." 

Jean starts to shake in his arms, her skin starting to grow hotter, then hotter yet. "You _promised_."

"Calm down, Jean. _Peace_ ," Charles says urgently, stroking her hair, patting her back, until eventually, with a shuddering breath, Jean starts to cool down, her skin going from a cherry red back to a pale hue. "If you like, I can... help you stop things, for a while. Until you feel more confident. But the priests were wrong, Jean. You're very special, but that's a _good_ thing. Everyone here in my school is special. Everyone has abilities that they need to learn to understand and control."

"School," Jean repeats, frowning a little into Charles' shirt. "I remember that. A while ago. I had to go to school." She pulls a face. "I had to do homework, and sit in class, and learn about _math_. I _hate_ school."

Charles lets out a startled laugh that he couldn't have stopped even if he tried. "Well, young lady," he says dryly, "Unfortunately, school is a necessary part of your life." 

He almost expects another tantrum, but Jean merely pulls a longer face. "But I'm going to be slower than everyone else who's my age! I was... away. When I started to hear the voices. They put me away."

"Jean," Charles says gently, "No one here will care. You're safe, and with us. That's all that matters." 

She mulls this over, plucking at his shirt, then she says, in a small voice, "Do I have to do math?"

"Yes, child," Charles pets her hair. "Everyone does. It wouldn't be fair otherwise. But I'll give you extra help, if you need it." 

"All right," Jean blows out her breath in a sigh. "I can wake up now, if you'll help me with the... with the voices. And the haunting. And the math," she adds, a little sourly. 

"That's my girl," Charles says encouragingly. "You're the bravest person I've ever met."

"Really?" Jean perks up at that. "You think that I'm brave?"

"Of course you are. Now, you might not remember too much of this when you wake up, but if you sleep, and reach out for me, I'll be there." 

"All right," Jean nods, trustingly enough, and she pulls back enough to glance around. "I like this place. It's beautiful. But it seems so sad."

"That's because it's empty," Charles tells her wryly. "And it will be empty for a long while more, I think. But someday I hope that I can show all of you around it. Then it won't be so sad."

"I'll like that," Jean smiles wanly.

II.

"She's hungry and will like some waffles," Charles tells Hank, when he opens his eyes, "With chocolate and strawberry jam. And a glass of milk. _And_ I need a very strong cup of tea, thanks."

Hank nods, hurrying out of the room, and Charles frowns at the doorway, where Erik is lounging, arms folded. Behind him is Logan, and weirdly enough, peeking around the edges, is Scott. "Yes?" 

"Is she all right?" Erik asks warily, though he tenses up as on the bed, Jean stirs, slowly starting to wake. 

"Yes, she's fine. She'll need more rest, and she may not remember what happened to her for the past few months until she's ready, particularly the very... difficult details, but-"

" _Months?_ " Erik cuts in, incredulous. " _Mein gott-_ "

" _Hush_ ," Charles says sharply, "And leave the infirmary, please, you're all quite a nuisance."

Unfortunately, Jean chooses that moment to sit up sharply on the bed, wide-eyed and blinking, then she takes in a long, harsh breath and rubs her eyes slowly. Charles shoots everyone in the doorway a hard glance, but only Scott ducks quickly out of sight. "Jean? How are you feeling?" Charles asks soothingly.

"Hungry. I feel like... waffles. And some milk." Jean smiles tentatively at Charles, then her smile drops away as she looks past him to the door, stiffening up. Charles soothes her mind with a touch, but he knows that she can still pick up the warm buzz of concern from Erik's mind, and curiosity from Logan. It's Logan whom she stares at, frowning. "Do I... know you?"

"Maybe," Logan decides, with a grin. "Good to see you up, kid."

"I don't really remember you," Jean says apologetically, "But the Professor said it was okay."

"Yeah, that's fine." Logan nods. "We can catch up some other time. You take care, girl." 

"Jean," Jean says quickly, with a faint, tentative smile. "That's my name." 

"Jimmy," Logan offers his own. "Catch you later. Wheels, I'm going to grab Wraith and dig Fred out of the kitchen. We've got auditions to run, apparently." He stalks off, probably grabbing Scott on the way, judging from the burst of outrage that Charles feels out in the corridor. Erik steps closer, leaning his arms over the handlebars of Charles' wheelchair.

"I'm Erik," he introduces himself mildly. "Charles and I run this place together."

"I know," Jean says, looking at him worriedly. "Charles says that I have to do math. Do I have to do math? And go to class? I'm going to be _so_ behind everyone else."

Erik chuckles. "Running the school is _Charles_ ' purview, I am afraid. If he says that you have to go to class, then you have to go to class."

 _Traitor_ , Charles tells Erik silently, and feels a ping of amusement in return. "Don't you have something to do, Erik?"

"Not as yet." Erik replies, utterly unruffled by the pointed dismissal in Charles' tone.

"Really, Erik-"

"He wants to be near you," Jean says absently, craning her neck to look around the both of them. "He loves you. Do you smell waffles? Is that for me?" 

Charles freezes in his chair, even as he feels Erik's sudden tension, in his mind, and they're still absolutely silent as Hank bustles back in with a plate of waffles slathered in chocolate sauce and jam. Behind him, Wanda has somehow managed to balance a glass of milk, a full teacup, cutlery and sugar in a delicate act that she settles down neatly at the side table even as Jean lets out a happy squeal.

 _Erik?_ Charles asks tentatively, concern-wariness-curiosity, even as they watch Jean start to inhale her waffles. 

"Not so fast," Hank squawks, but Jean ignores him, even as Wanda giggles and waves and leaves the room. "The kitchen was already making waffles, by happy coincidence, and they'll probably keep making waffles until we run out of flour and eggs," Hank adds, and looks at Charles and Erik, noticing their tension belatedly. "What?"

"Nothing," Erik says glibly, even as he responds, _You telepaths._ It's wry, and as Charles sends a further wordless query, he adds, half impression, half jumbled thoughts, _I thought you knew._

And he _did_ , Charles knows now. He _did_ know. Erik's cherished memories, the warmth of them, their vividness. He had been looking at it all along and had somehow - somehow rejected the very idea, so deep down that he hadn't even realized it. He had known. _When?_ he asks, slowly. _All this while?_

 _All this while,_ Erik echoes, and when Hank turns to check on his patient, he adds, _thought you knew._

 _Clearly I've been rather out of sorts for a while,_ Charles retorts sharply, uncomfortably, and Erik rears back. _And you've hardly always done what I wished._

 _I love you, but that doesn't mean that I should obey you,_ Erik retorts, and the sentiment is so stubbornly _Erik_ that Charles starts to laugh, despite himself, and Hank frowns at them both worriedly.

"They're just talking," Jean says indistinctly, her mouth smeared with chocolate and jam. "God this is so _good_. Wanda is awesome. Can you tell her she's awesome?" 

"I'll tell her," Hank assures her, looking a little startled before he remembers, the word _telepath_ drifting briefly at the forefront of his mind. 

"I could eat waffles _forever_." 

"No, you certainly will not," Charles says quickly. "You'll be eating a balanced diet along with everyone else." 

" _Charles_ ," Erik says reproachfully. "Surely some leeway can be arranged. Jean only just got here." 

"And she'll thank me for that when she's older and not suffering from the consequences of a sugar-only diet," Charles retorts. 

_You don't seem to be..._ Erik projects a half-formed impression of an argument, of anger, and Charles internalises a sigh. 

"He's known all this while, but he was in denial," Jean tells Erik, and frowns a little as Hank looks confused. "Sorry," she adds apologetically, as Charles sighs. "I forgot." 

"That's all right, Jean. But remember what I said about the voices." 

"Yes," Jean looks abashed, ducking her head. "Sorry." 

_Making her ashamed of her abilities already?_ Erik feels annoyed, exasperated.

 _No, of course not. But children can be cruel creatures, and clannish. She has to make friends. And just because she has powers does not mean that she should abuse them. People's thoughts are private. I respect that, as much as I can. So must she._ Charles hesitates, for a moment more. _Erik, I-_

 _Nothing's changed_ , Erik cuts in firmly, with finality.

It feels as though everything has, in actual fact, but Charles finds himself nodding slowly, instead, his mind a whirl. He thinks back over what he has seen in Erik's mind, what he had _felt_ , and Charles knows, now, that no one has loved him as fiercely as Erik does, not like this, not while knowing the sum total of all of his flaws, the extent of Charles' abilities. It's a staggering thought to even contemplate, and Charles isn't sure if he even wants to. He's not sure what would happen. How he might change. He doesn't feel capable of even thinking the matter over right now, not rationally.

"When do I have to start school?" Jean asks tentatively, waffles finished, holding the cup of milk with both hands.

"Whenever you like," Erik says, even as Charles notes, "Perhaps in a few days when you are better rested." 

"Sadly, Charles has the right of way on this issue," Erik adds smoothly, even as Jean looks nervously between them. 

"You won't be thrown into the deep end. Hank here will talk to you and see where you are." Charles says as reassuringly as he can. "You'll do fine."

"I'm going to be slower than everyone else my age," Jean tells Hank hurriedly. "But that doesn't mean I'm stupid. The Professor said that I'll catch up." 

"Of course you will," Hank blinks, clearly surprised at the very suggestion, and Jean relaxes. "You'll be in Scott's class - he was outside your room, but he's gone for a class by now. He'll make sure you'll catch up, and help out. Everyone's at different levels," Hank adds gently, when Jean starts to look panicky. "Many of us only just got here as well."

"Okay," Jean says uncomfortably. "Okay. I can help out around here," she adds hopefully. "I'm good at that. That place you were looking for, for example," she tells Erik brightly. "The big place from the numbers? I know where that is."


	7. Chapter 7

I.

By the time Charles arranges for someone to watch Jean, attends to various administrative disputes and problems and finally wheels into the makeshift war room, Erik is already clustered within it with Logan, Wraith, Fred and Mort. Maps cover the table, one of them circled with red ink.

"Indian fuckin' ocean," Logan grunts. "What the bloody fuck."

"Big island at that," Wraith notes doubtfully, peering at the crescent-shaped land mass that is circled on the map. "How are we going to get from here to there?"

"I have a plane," Charles admits. "Alex is using it, but he'll be - hopefully - back with it soon, within the next two days." 

"Could steal a plane," Fred suggests, even as Charles wheels up to the table to pull the map over to himself, Erik circling over to his side. "If you want to head there sooner."

"Could steal nothin'," Logan disagrees. "You wanna tell everyone where we're going? Ain't like stealin' kiddies and chickens. 'Sides, I thought that we were lookin' at a small island, or a rig. This ain't it. We might need Alex and his boys."

"I agree," Charles glances up at Erik. "You're _not_ going there by yourself." 

Erik lifts a shoulder into a shrug. "I told you that I am a pragmatist, Charles. Judging from the impressions that you picked up from Jean, this Trask Industries outpost called 'Genosha' is a rather larger enterprise than I can effectively handle."

"In other words," Logan sums it up, "They're probably buildin' the goddamned robots over there, seein' as we _haven't_ found hide nor hair of them over here, in all the places that we've hit." 

"They're not using American labour? What a scandal," Wraith says dryly. 

"Probably using cheap African labour grabbed off the mainland." Mort murmurs, then glances quickly over at Wraith. "Sorry, John."

Wraith rolls his eyes. "I'm a mutant, and every non-human out there wants my guts. Far as I'm concerned, we're kinda rather _way_ past whether I'm gonna be offended or identified by anything else right now. 'Sides, it's probably true. They might even have beefed up security with local merc gangs. Cheaper, more brutal, and they don't ask questions."

"It's quite likely that Genosha is the manufacturing site, then," Charles agrees, frowning. "Not that I saw that in Jean's mind, but her experience of the area was rather limited. Still, in all my sweeps within Cerebro, I haven't found any Sentinel factories within this country, so I suppose this might explain it, if it's far offshore." Not that the Cerebro sweeps themselves were that accurate - the number of minds in the United States itself was just far too vast. 

"So we take over the island? And then what?" Wraith asks doubtfully. "How're we gonna get everyone there?" 

"Accordin' to the news reports, this guy here lifted an entire football stadium without breakin' a sweat, and you're asking us how?" Logan jerks his thumb at Erik. "Didn't really see the point of you doin' that, by the way," Logan drawls. "It's not like cop cars are a real threat to you. Just wanted somethin' to contain your ego?"

" _Stadium aside_ ," Charles says, even as Erik scowls at Logan, "We'll worry about how to move everyone after the threat in Genosha is neutralised and the island is secure - and deemed a good place to move everyone."

"Objectively speaking," Erik adds, "It's out of American soil, arguably in international waters, and unknown to the American government-"

"If you fly a stadium full o' people out east, that'll do fuck all for stealth," Logan points out blithely. 

"We don't need to use a stadium, or use stealth," Charles interrupts with a touch of irritation. "Thanks to the recession, Boeing has 747s to sell - those large commercial aircraft that entered production three years back. I'll just buy one from them or from Pan Am. They seat well over three hundred people, if I recall. I haven't used my money to supply us to date in case our location gets traced, but it won't matter about a plane, since we'll be leaving within it. It might be a tight fit to get all our supplies in there, but we can just take what we absolutely need and source the rest from... what?" he scowls at the rest, as they stare at him.

"I forget sometimes," Logan rolls his eyes. 

"I think you're the first person I've met who's richer than God," Wraith adds. 

"We just need a proper runway," Charles ignores them. "But that hopefully shouldn't be a problem. Surely an island manufacturing outpost like Genosha would have a runway. Even if it's not commercial length, I trust Erik should be able to catch the plane?" 

Logan shudders. "Catch the...? I fuckin' _hate_ flying." 

"What about out here?" Wraith asks. "Where're you guys gonna take off?"

"This facility has a runway out in the Black Rock Desert. Where do you think we've been hiding my current plane? Leave the logistics to me." Charles taps the map with his fingers. "Concentrate on your problem, gentlemen." 

"We'll wait for Alex Summers to return," Erik decides. "I don't want a large team for this hit, but we should take Alex, at the least, and Ink. Perhaps Pietro and the others, depending on Alex's evaluation of their abilities under combat situations." He glances at Mort. "Toad, unfortunately, I do not wish to take anyone injured aboard. You will have to remain here."

Mort scowls, but nods tightly. "Yeah. I get it. I was thinking I could help out, but this sounds like it's way too big for you guys to have to take on someone not at a hundred per cent."

"And one more thing," Charles says firmly. "I don't want all of you to assume that every single human in Genosha is a threat. Avoid committing a mass murder. Just... do what you have to, to get in, and stop the manufacturing, and save any mutants you find inside. An island like this won't just be run by mercenaries. There'll be a lot of innocent administrative staff and-"

" _Charles_ ," Erik cuts in coldly. "You run Providence. _I_ run our operations."

"I thought you wanted a partner, not just a schoolteacher," Charles snaps back, glaring up at Erik. "And I am _telling you_ , Erik, that bloodshed only makes things _worse_. Haven't you learned this by now?" 

"Whoa," Wraith blinks, glancing uncertainly between them both, as Erik scowls, the metal fixtures in the room starting to hum and rattle. "Settle down, you two. We've got enough fighting out there for all of us-"

"And whose fault was that?" Charles retorts. "You want to show humans that our species is superior? Then _act_ that way, Erik, with _maturity_! Not petty revenges and violence. What good has ever come from the mass murder of people? It's not just Trask Industries who are watching us, gentlemen. It's the _world_. This pogrom that you have created in the United States... don't you think that it might be worse out there, over the rest of the world? We can't save everyone, but we _shouldn't have to_."

"Charles-" Erik begins stiffly, but Charles clutches tightly at the arms of his wheelchair and keeps going. He isn't finished.

"I'm asking you - all of you - to look at the greater picture. There are mutants all over the world, not just in America. We're going to have to live with the entire world, eventually. We can't sustain our current state of total hostilities. Not with new mutant children being born every minute to human parents. Not with that Trask mutant sensor device already made. Can't you _see_? We need a better solution, one that we - and the humans - can _both_ live with." 

Surprisingly enough, it's Logan who eyes him thoughtfully, then Erik, before finally asking, "Then what do you suggest, Prof? We ask them nicely to stop tryin' to kill us?" 

"We find a safe place that we can hold, for now, as agreed. Where we can support not just the people we bring from the United States, but anyone else from the rest of the world who might want to join us. So far it looks like our best bet is Genosha," Charles says tiredly. "And after that, when we're more settled, we bid for peace. With the world."

Erik scoffs. "If you think they will agree-"

"The UN is tired of war," Charles retorts. "So is much of the world. The last World War was only nearly two decades ago, and it created a recession and deep scars. The Vietnam War was a disaster. If we can convince them that we want peace, and that we want to be left alone, that'll do far more good for all the new mutants yet to be born into this world than your warmongering."

"You're naive if you think that it will be that easy."

"I know that it won't be," Charles snaps. "That it'll take months, maybe longer, of negotiation. That maybe we'll have to give as well as take. But I _don't_ think that humans are evil. _All_ that is different between us and them is our abilities: not how our minds work, not how the blood runs in our veins, not how we are fundamentally _shaped_. To try and fit what has happened into black and white, into 'us and them'? _That_ is being _childish_ , Erik."

Erik's expression stills, but he says tightly, "We'll discuss that later. First, we must deal with Genosha." 

"Yeah," Wraith says quickly, looking relieved, as does Fred, but Logan shoots them both another long, thoughtful stare, before turning back to the maps.

II.

Alex comes back with a broken leg, and other than Pietro, none of the rest of his group returns utterly unscathed. At least the new batch of freed mutants are unharmed, but another triage centre has to be set up, again to fix gunshot wounds. No one's critically injured, at least, thanks to Pietro, apparently.

"They were waiting for us," Alex admits, as he debriefs Charles and Erik in the infirmary as he's dosed on painkillers and Hank works on his leg. "Sniper nests, artillery, you name it. _And_ they had a couple of Sentinels. If not for Pietro, we probably wouldn't have made it out. But he couldn't be everywhere. Actually," he adds, "We probably wouldn't have made it anyway, if one of the prisoners hadn't suddenly gone batshit mental."

"What?" Erik asks. 

"Pietro got their locks and took off those suppression helmets that Trask Industries tricked up. Most of them just panicked, but there was this little silver-haired African girl? Her eyes went white, and then she hit some tanks and the sniper nests with lightning. Was pretty awesome," Alex grins foolishly, already under the influence of the painkillers. "Hey, these are some _great_ drugs."

Hank rolls his eyes, even as he sets Alex's leg. "Rest up, Alex," Charles says wryly. "You did well."

"Later, Prof." Alex grins, and Erik follows Charles as he wheels himself briskly out of the infirmary, heading to the room where the new, huge batch of mutants would be given a welcome and sorted into rooms. He comes in just as they're all filing out, each with a 'buddy' assigned to them, mostly students and a handful of staff, and touches Wanda's arm even as she starts to walk out of the room with a silver-haired girl beside her. She can't be more than nine years old.

Charles studies the girl's face, her dark, smooth skin, her worried, yet curious eyes, the silver hair, currently dirty and in a short, unruly mop, her pink blouse and skirt, her torn shoes. He remembers how she would look like, older, taller, hair as short as ever, her calm, her grace. 

"Storm," Charles names her, and holds out his hand to her. "Miss Ororo Munroe. Welcome to Providence."

She looks at him, startled, then at Wanda, who grins, and shyly, Ororo sets her tiny palm in Charles' hand, to shake, so very solemn. 

Three out of three.

"You're in a good mood," Erik tells Charles softly, as they watch the rest go, in the emptying debrief room. "She's one of those you saw in Logan's future?"

"One of the ones he asked me to look out for," Charles agrees. "Her. Jean, and Scott. More, who haven't yet been born, I believe. I feel as though we're getting somewhere. Somewhere good, I hope." He sighs. "Her mother tried to run away with her, when Ororo set off the district scanner during a routine scan. Ororo's worried about her parents." 

"We can find them," Erik shrugs. 

"They're both human," Charles says mildly, narrowing his eyes, even as Erik frowns at Charles.

"Then I doubt they have any problems to worry about, compared to their daughter." 

"In Logan's future," Charles says flatly, "Humans _and_ mutants _both_ fight against the Sentinels, and those controlling the Sentinels. It _never_ became us versus them. They targeted humans who were carriers of the gene, who were humans themselves but whom had the capacity to have mutant descendants."

Erik glares at Charles, but Charles meets his eyes evenly, until finally, Erik lets out an angry breath, and glances away, his fists clenching. _You are extremely_ , Erik's mind reads, before fading into a jumble of anger and frustration, and Charles finds himself smiling wryly, pulling at Erik's sleeve until Erik kneels beside him. When Charles holds a hand to Erik's temple and slips in, this time, he isn't sure what he's doing, or what he's looking for. 

Still, Erik's mind settles under his touch, reluctantly at first, then wholeheartedly, until Charles can't tell where their meld of impressions starts, and ends. He explores Erik's fury, his frustration, his conviction that fear - fear of retribution - would be the best way to get 'the humans' to leave them alone. 

In response, Charles pulls Erik within his own mind, squashing down his concern, his wariness, allowing Erik to look at his own reasons, his own thoughts. This is easier than arguing, easier than words. Like this, they are together, and one, an intimacy far greater than the physical, far more than anything sexual. It should frighten Charles, how easy it is, but it doesn't. 

_The arc of the moral universe is long,_ Erik listens to an echo of a dead man's words in Charles' mind, echoing it with curiosity, _But it bends towards justice._

_Yes_ , Charles agrees, _If you have the patience to walk the difficult path._

_I'm not convinced,_ Erik responds, disbelief-doubt-caution, with a burst of memories: snatches of the concentration camps, of autopsy records, of Jean, wired up in a laboratory, of holding Charles' file and trembling with rage, _But I'm listening._

III.

"Aww _man_ ," Alex complains. "I want to go!"

"Your leg's broken, kid," Logan points out, and smirks at Alex's scowl, then he turns back to Erik. "What now, boss? Alex's team is hurt or out of the count, other than Pietro. We'll be running real low on support. The other kiddies around here are more likely to get into our way than help. Wanna wait?"

"No. The longer we wait, the worse it'll get. We have resource problems, even now. Feeding our current population will likely grow tricky..." Erik glances at Charles, who pushes the statistics absently into Erik's mind, "Within the week. The large consignment of mutants that Alex's team just brought in has doubled our number of dependents."

"Sure, bub," Logan shrugs, unfazed. "Hope you realize that this means we go in nice and easy, not all guns blazin' as we always have to date."

"Subtlety isn't beyond me," Erik retorts.

"Really? Could'a fooled me," Logan smirks.

"If we can land on Genosha itself without being detected, we will. Otherwise, we land in Madagascar and head south from there quietly," Erik says briskly, pointing out the marked route. "With my powers, we won't need a runway. If Genosha is indeed where they are manufacturing Sentinels, we'll have to expect heavy resistance should we trip the alarm."

"My abilities cut through one of the Sentinels," Alex pipes up from the corner. "Look, guys, I can come. You can float me along, or something, in a metal chair, or-"

"No." Erik says firmly. "You are to stay here and rest." 

"Right, then," Alex pulls a face. "Hank fixed up a visor for my brother Scott, and the Professor can tell you he's improved a _lot_. He's can make the same stuff as I can, just from his eyes, and the Professor says that Scott's beams are possibly stronger. So. Scott's been clamouring to go on missions for ages. If you guys can look after him-"

"He's too young," Charles disagrees. "And he has not had any combat experience. He'll be too much of a liability. But thank you, Alex. How did Pietro go?"

"Him? He's great. Definitely take him," Alex concedes. "And Remy too, he just got a bit scraped up when he got caught up in the edges of an explosion. He can take care of himself. How's Jason doing?"

"Still sedated," Charles relates. "He's suffering from a gunshot injury to the shoulder, high caliber rifle. He's not out of the danger zone yet." 

"Pity. He was real good," Alex looks briefly worried, chewing on his lower lip. "I know Ink's sleeping off cracked ribs. So that's us for now. Sorry guys."

"No, you did well," Erik disagrees. "We can handle Genosha with what we have. Gambit and Pietro would be a welcome addition."

Charles exhales tightly. "I can go. I have a two hundred mile radius with my ability. If I stay in the plane I can still provide support." 

"You can't control Sentinels, Professor," Alex looks at him in alarm. 

"But everything else? I can help with that." 

"No," Erik says flatly. "You're needed _here_." _Charles_ , Erik's mind insists, and Charles reads concern there, a little fear, wariness, something almost but not quite like pleading. _Don't be stubborn on this_. 

It's the entreaty that gets to him. Reluctantly, Charles nods. "Then... good luck, everyone. Be safe. And remember what I said before," he adds evenly, glancing again at Erik. "The world is watching. Don't give them the show that they're expecting."


	8. Chapter 8

I.

Erik has been gone for days before, but this is the first time that Charles worries. Perhaps the first time that he's aware that he _misses_ Erik. Erik has never gone out of range of what Charles has comfortably dared with Cerebro before.

 _He loves you,_ Jean had said, so very matter-of-factly, and Charles wishes that he wasn't obsessing over this detail. He can't pretend that it isn't gratifying on some subliminal level. Erik is the most handsome man Charles has ever met, after all: possibly one of the most beautiful people Charles has ever _seen_ , intelligent and passionate. If only-

"Professor?" Hank cuts into his thoughts. "Um. You looked like you were a million miles away."

"Pardon me," Charles rubs a palm over his eyes. "Do continue."

Hank studies him for a moment, uncomfortably. "It's been three days with no word. That's a little strange." 

"I do believe were in the middle of... discussing the development of a self-defence class?" 

"Well, _I_ was," Hank says, not unkindly. "You could use Cerebro." 

"I've never tried that sort of distance."

"Theoretically, it's possible.

"I'm not willing to take that risk right now just to satisfy a curiosity," Charles reminds Hank wearily. "Now, if we could get _back_ to-" 

"Professor!" Scott careens to a stop outside Charles' study. "Outside! Sentinels!" 

Hank jumps to his feet, even as Charles reaches for Scott's mind, picks out a name, and scans for the sentry on duty - Mort, up above in the hidden surface bunker. At the first touch on his mind, Mort opens up, giving Charles an image of dots arriving on the horizon, of an amplified view from his scope. 

Six Sentinels. 

No Erik. 

Charles lets out a slow breath, closing his eyes. _Thank you, Scott. Go back to your class. Hank, Hangar Two._ Swallowing his own fear, Charles reaches out to teachers, bidding them to take their classes to the lower levels: following the drills - notifying Alex, and then the rest of the combat-capable mutants. He feels Jean's curiosity, as she senses his presence, and her puzzlement as he tells her to go with the other children. They're all too young. 

He wheels himself briskly towards Cerebro, even as Providence explodes into activity around him. None of it is panicked, which is a good sign. The drills have worked that far. 

Cerebro comes online as easy as a dream, and Charles closes his eyes as he settles its helm over his head, his abilities kicking into amplified gear. He can see the evacuation procedures working more or less in order, see the response teams organising themselves in the three different Hangars. 

Annoyingly enough, Scott _and_ Alex are in Hangar One, but as he touches Alex's mind, Alex responds with a stubborn welter of determination and a burst of concern, leaning heavily on his crutches beside his brother. There are so _few_ of them with the ability to take on a Sentinel, let alone six. Charles _has_ to reach Erik. 

But what can Erik do? The Sentinels are here _now_. What can _Charles_ do? 

The Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada. Its 474th Tactical Fighter Wing. Charles hesitates for a moment, drifting, but then he senses the anticipation and fear spike up from the far-too-few battle-ready students and staff, feels rather than hears the impact of heavy artillery pounding into the ground above them. The Sentinels are trying to dig them out, or bury them. 

_Hold them for as long as you can_ , Charles instructs them all. _I'm getting help._

_Help? Who needs help?_ Alex tries to send reassurance but only manages to project his worry; besides, his leg is hurting him. _We'll deal with this, Professor._

_You're getting my help whether you like it or not, young man,_ Charles retorts, projecting a brisk calm that he does not quite feel, and allows his mind to drop away, to move south, searching, seeking. 

There are _hundreds_ of minds in the Nellis, with its military schools, lodging, shopping areas, Halls, weapon storage areas, administrative and family housing, hospitals and more. Searching out the F-111 pilots would take time, but reaching out for Tactical Air Command to send a trickle-down order would take too long - and _they_ were in Langley.

But then, Charles _doesn't_ actually need a real order, does he? He just needs to convince the comms units that they received a real order. 

Charles has never tried control and deception on this scale before - he can only pray that it works. He feels/hears the first polymer-armoured fist break through the ceiling into Hangar One, even as Charles takes control of the Nellis comms unit to trigger a carefully worded 'alarm'.

"Rogue Trask units approaching human civilian campsite," Charles says, through the lips of one of the operators. "Orders to engage, alpha clearance, 474 immediate live response." 

He has to ride pillion in the minds of the comms officers as they burst into action, just to check, even as the part of him watching through his students' eyes sees Alex let loose a bolt of plasma energy at the first Sentinel, quickly followed by a concussive blast from his little brother. The blast does little - Scott isn't yet strong enough, whatever Alex might think - and Liddy hastily drags Alex out of the way as armour-piercing bullets stitch into the spot where Alex had been standing. 

More metal fingers hammer down the roof around them, even as the Hangar One mutants scramble to get out of the way. 

The other Hangars are having the same problems: Sentinels digging down towards them, steadily, ignoring blasts and bullets alike. Charles watches as Hank - blue-furred now - growls and leaps up into the gap that opens, darting up a Sentinel's arm and up to his shoulder, plucking wildly and ineffectively at its helmet. The Sentinel twists, stamping heavily back, trying to reach for Hank, even as the Sentinel beside it turns, arms raised, targeting locked, _Hank, watch yourself, Hank!_

Charles needn't have worried - Hank leaps out of the way at the last moment, even as heavy armour-piercing slugs burst through the first Sentinel's visor, sending it crashing down onto its back on the barren desert floor, twitching and spitting fragments and last gasps of electrical synapses. Charles feels/hears the ragged cheer from Hangar Two, even as Sentinels break down into Hangar Three, firing on the few mutants pinned by falling debris and God _no_ \- he feels three people die instantly, his _staff_ -

He has never felt so helpless, not even waking up heavily sedated ten years ago, with no more sensation in his legs. Not trapped under debris as Erik threatened the President. Helpless.

Hangar One fares little better. Blasts from Scott and Alex, following a successful acid blast from Liddy - have melted enough of the Sentinel's faceplate to cause a malfunction: this works in their favour at first, as the Sentinel starts firing wildly, even on the other Sentinels, but even as Alex lets out of a whoop of triumph, the malfunctioning Sentinel seems to stagger in the air, then its boot jets malfunction as well, cutting off.

The huge robot collapses downwards, smashing through the remainder of the hangar ceiling, and even as Charles cries out - it crushes Liddy and Mort under the debris and its weight. He feels the flash of pain in their minds before they wink out on him, and _now_ , now the cavalry is coming, but it is already too late, too late - one of the Sentinels has _Hank_ in its grasp, starting to squeeze-

The first F-111 fires its payload of AIM-54s, the Phoenix missiles exploding into bright orange bursts as they dove at high velocity at their targets. More explosions rock the Sentinels at Hangar Two and Three, even as the Sentinels ignore the new threat - non-mutants - trying doggedly to get to the mutants in the Hangars. Charles rides with the pilots, hiding the holes ripped into Providence, guiding their brisk reports back to base.

The F-111s streak apart as they spread out to go on another bombing run, explosions blooming over space polymer chest units and backs. One missile strikes the Sentinel holding Hank high up in its faceplate, and it goes inactive almost all at once, slumping, knee-deep in concrete debris and rock. Hank manages to wriggle free, dropping heavily onto the ground, and students dart forward to drag him back to safety. The survivors are firing back - bolts, concussive blasts, even bullets: mostly useless, but keeping the Sentinels distracted

It takes one more strafing run before the final Sentinel's faceplate is punctured and goes dark. Charles slips amended memories into the minds of the pilots with another touch, and withdraws. Trembling, Charles pulls up the Cerebro helm, and finds that he's sweated through his shirt, drenched to the skin, his hands shaking as he settles them on the wheels of his chair and turns himself around, reaching for his students, his staff. Providence is still theirs.

II.

Hank takes delivery of the purchased, secondhand 747, and they're midway through loading it when a blur of displaced air kicks up next to Charles and Pietro appears, looking exhausted, panting and bent, holding on to his knees.

"Holy fuck," Pietro breathes, staring at the devastation before him. The three Hangars have all caved in, and the hulks of the deactivated Sentinels have yet to be moved. Through the service hatch, students and staff alike are helping to move supplies into the airplane. "Wanda? Where's Wanda?"

"She's fine." Charles assures him. The effort of scanning, then holding on to so many minds for so long - while checking on the battle effort - has taken its toll: he feels bone tired. "What happened on your end?"

"Logan - Jimmy - insisted on doing things his way. The _slow_ way," Pietro rolls his eyes. "We snuck in, took out their communications room and their command units, got rid of the mercs, and sent the minor administrative staff and minions with them."

"And the scientists?"

"They were fine, last I saw," Pietro shrugs. "Erik wanted to kill them, but Jimmy wouldn't let him."

Relieved, Charles nods. It seems that he had at least _one_ person on his side. "Is Genosha ready for us?"

"Yep. Will be, by the time we get back. Wanda!" Pietro perks up, even as Wanda, freshly emerging from the service hatch, drops the crate that she was carrying and rushes over into her brother's arms. 

"I was so scared," Wanda clutches Pietro tightly. "My bolts didn't do anything against those _things_." 

"You were _fighting_?" Pietro demands, aghast.

Wanda rolls her eyes. " _You_ were fighting. _I'm_ as old as you are." Wanda had been in Hangar Three. 

"Catch up with your sister," Charles tells Pietro encouragingly, who nods, zips away, and returns with the crate that Wanda was holding. The twins head at a walk towards the plane, their heads bent in conversation, and Charles lets out a sigh of relief. So Genosha had gone well, then. Thank God.

A familiar face emerges next from the hatch, dutifully carrying a small box of textbooks, and Jean trots over to Charles as he smiles at her. "I could have helped," Jean tells him staunchly. "I wouldn't have been scared. You told me I was brave."

"You're young yet, Miss," Charles tells her wryly. "But you'll have your chance when you're older, of that I have no doubt." 

" _Scott_ got to help," Jean scowls. "That wasn't fair."

"Scott wasn't meant to be helping," Charles corrects. "But regardless, he's improved greatly in his classes. Until you've made progress in your lessons, young lady, you'll not be 'helping' at all." 

Jean mock scowls at Charles, but he can feel relief in her mind, relief that Charles is all right, that the few friends whom she's made to date among the students are well: Scott, Wanda and Storm. She grins and ambles off quickly when Wanda shouts and waves to her from further up the line, and Charles watches her go, content. 

"Life could have been easier if you let her into the defence forces," Hank murmurs, ambling up to Charles next. Hank looks pale still, possibly suffering from a couple of cracked ribs, but he's refused to let that stop him, overseeing the evacuation along with Charles. 

"Or not," Charles disagrees. He's seen what happens in Logan's future when Jean loses control, and it hadn't been pretty. "She's too young. You _all_ are," he adds, ruefully. 

Hank snorts. "We all had to grow up sometime," he says, echoing Alex's words, and grins when Charles shakes his head slowly at him. He looks tired, and melancholy: Liddy had been a friend of his, assisting with the chemistry classes, and Charles knew that Alex was still mourning Mort. The fallen had been buried awkwardly further away from the wreckage, the only things marking their graves were cairns of rubble and stone. Charles had felt them die: he carried the echo of their final thoughts within him, their pain. Christ, at least it had been quick.

"Will we be ready soon?" Charles asks. The sun has dropped in the sky: it's growing dark and chilly. Sweepers are still studying the makeshift runway ahead for dangerous portholes, but it looks as though they'll be fit to go. "And are you sure that you're in any state to fly this plane?"

"With painkillers, and a bit of help, sure," Hank taps at his temple and looks apologetic. "I can collapse later, when we're all safe. Finally safe. As to whether we're ready... it depends on whether you want to move all of the medical equipment. Two hours at most, I think, unless Pietro feels up to helping us pack." 

"I doubt it. He just ran across a couple of oceans to get back to us." 

"He... oh yes. Superfast speed." Hank looks thoughtful. "There's a lizard that can do that. Run fast enough to run over water. I read about it somewhere."

"I don't think Pietro would appreciate being compared to a lizard," Charles says wryly, and they make small talk to distract themselves, all the way until Hank deems them sufficiently packed, and helps Charles up into the plane. Hands reach down for him to help pull him up, concern-affection-trust, and Charles lets Hank settle him into a passenger seat by a window and strap down, even as Scott stows away the wheelchair in the back. 

"You sure that you can fly this thing?" Alex yells at Hank, as Hank starts to make his way to the cockpit.

"If I can't, you'll be the first to know, Summers!" Hank shoots back, and laughter ripples down the aisle behind him. 

No one's nervous - that's good. Takeoff is a little bumpy, but Charles breathes out a sigh of relief once they start to climb, gaining altitude, and absently reaches out to comfort a panicky child's mind as her ears start to pop from the ascent. They're on their way home.

III.

Erik greets them at the far too short runway, having caught the plane in a squeal and groan of fixtures and hull. Somehow, through a miracle, Hank manages to taxi the plane into the tiny hangar without snapping off the wings, which is an awkward fit along with Charles' own private jet.

A rousing cheer roars through the survivors as Hank's voice, hitched a little with pain, comes through the pilot announcements, and Charles sees Alex struggle to his feet, grabbing for his crutches. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Genosha. If you could wait until the seatbelt sign is 'off' before... God _damnit_ , Alex, get back to your seat!"

"Hey guys," Alex's voice floats through the comms after the sound of a scuffle, "How about a big cheer for our pilot, eh?" 

Whoops and clapping erupt again, louder this time, even as Hank's voice can be heard protesting indistinctly over the comms, " _Seriously_ , Alex, there're _procedures_ -"

"And let's have a second big cheer," Alex cuts in, clearly unperturbed, "For the man who got us this far, our Professor!"

Charles smiles wanly as the clapping gets louder, into a thunder of sound, but it's not as loud as the press of minds all around him, in one bright note of joy. 

The jet doors pull open as though automated, and as Charles briefly wonders what they're going to do about airstairs, metal slats build themselves upward into passable copies, even as Erik floats himself through one of the doors, looks around sharply, then strides down the aisle to him. He looks none the worse for wear, as Charles touches his mind, aligning their memories of the past few days - and Erik freezes beside him in the middle of helping him with his seatbelts. 

_An attack on Providence?_ Erik's jaw clenches, even as Charles unbuckles himself, and Charles belatedly realizes that he's forgotten - this new and intimate connection that he forges so easily with Erik goes both ways. _Mort. Liddy. Elias..._ Erik picks the names of the dead from him, then looks at him searchingly. _Are you all right?_ Concern-affection cuts over the brimming edge of Erik's growing temper.

 _Tired_ , Charles admits, and allows Erik to pick him up, an arm around the small of his back and one under his knees, even as his staff start to herd students in orderly lines out of the jet doors. "If you want us to be the last to leave you should put me back down," Charles says dryly, but Erik merely arches an eyebrow at him and shifts Charles' weight a little in his arms. 

Alex grins at them as he hobbles past, one arm pulled over Hank's shoulders, and Hank shoots Erik a little frown, but continues to help Alex to the airstairs when Charles nudges his mind with reassurance. "We couldn't pack Cerebro, I'm afraid. So we sealed it in." 

"We can rebuild it. Or I can take it here." Erik leans over, brushing a quick, tentative kiss over Charles' forehead. "I should have known that they would attack Providence sometime," he adds softly, angrily. 

"They must have followed Alex and the contingent of survivors," Charles notes uncomfortably. "Their trail was far too large to hide effectively." 

"I should have been there."

"You were doing what you had to do," Charles disagrees. _I'm not helpless._

_We lost people,_ Erik points out, even as he kisses Charles again, lower this time, against his temple, as though daring his luck. They're the only ones left in the plane, and Charles hooks an arm up over Erik's shoulders, studying him frankly. 

_You told me that you can't be everywhere_ , Charles reminds him, feeding back the memory of their first days in the shell of what would become Providence, and a muscle jumps in Erik's jaw. He's resisting the memory, pushing against it: Erik hadn't enjoyed those first few days - those _weeks_ , when he had been sure that Charles had hated him. 

"Never that," Charles tells him softly, because as much as he might be against much of what Erik stood for, as much as he wished things were different, as much as Raven's blood remained spilled between them, hers and the blood of so many others - he could never hate Erik. Theirs is a connection that he knows will withstand the test of time, somehow, beyond rational logic, beyond ideologies and wars.

Charles has proposed to forgive the human race for the sins committed by the few against his kind - could he forgive Erik for Raven? For what Erik himself had done to the world, out of his conviction, not out of malice? He isn't sure yet, he thinks, as he reaches up, to press his free hand against Erik's cheek, then further up to the nape of his neck, tugging him down until their lips press together, nervous at first and a touch too hard until Erik gentles the kiss, shifting Charles in his arms, licking against him, tender, hungry. It's a newfound respect that he tastes on Erik, under the press of his mind, a grudging recognition of Charles' own personal strength, and perhaps - perhaps a willingness to _truly listen_. 

Still. Charles isn't sure yet.

Redemption is a difficult road to walk for the blindly stubborn, but Charles knows now that in this, at least, he is still Erik's teacher. He has to keep trying.


	9. Chapter 9

erik.

Erik nods at Hank in passing as he strides towards the conference chambers, where from the look of the closed doors Charles is still in protracted negotiations with the UN. He waits outside, thinking _Charles_? and gets a touch of acknowledgement in response, a sleek mental impression of humour-weariness-determination, in the half-sensation, half-verbal flow of telepathic speech.

In response, Erik projects a playful mental image of himself, bursting into the rooms, no doubt startling all the other participants in the video conference, and suffers the mental equivalent of a light slap of rebuke in response. Still, he can sense rather than hear Charles starting to wrap up the meeting, and after a few minutes, another touch on his mind that beckons.

Charles is pushing away from the desk set on a small dais before a crescent arc of varying screens, now growing dark, cradled in thick webs of cabling hooked up to panels and whirring machines. A young mutant boy - Forge - is busy tinkering with one, his ability making him deft at it as he starts rejigging up a circuit board absently even as he disassembles one of the transmitters, and Erik steps over to Charles' side to push the wheelchair.

He could use his powers to move Charles along far more easily, but Erik knows that Charles prefers it this way, the physical intimacy, as they head out of the conference room into the warm afternoon, the rebuilt corridors of Genosha open to the balmy sun, angling around rich tropical gardens lush with ferns and flowers. 

"Did the conference go well?" Physical speech feels strange nowadays, meshed as their minds usually get when they are this close, but it's still a habit. 

Charles pulls a face, but it's in Erik's mind that he feels Charles' wry resignation. "They're wary yet. But I think we're close to reaching an understanding. The UN is willing to cede Genosha island to us as an independent sovereign nation, but as to the rest-"

"Only because they know that they can't take Genosha from us," Erik cuts in, with a snort. 

"I'm trying to get them to recognise that mutants are humans as well, and as deserving of protection under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's been surprisingly rough going."

Erik rolls his eyes. "As though any country in the world truly does adhere to that Declaration. I'm staring to feel glad that I was excluded, if this is the sort of drivel that you're working through."

Charles sighs. "Erik, you know why I couldn't let you into the negotiations. We agreed. You're still a rather... polarising public figure, wanted for treason and murder - for good reason at that."

"You can do what you like with the UN," Erik agrees dismissively. He doesn't actually feel excluded.

Charles is wasting his time, as far as Erik can tell, but this strange and often ineffective game of human politics and policy is one that Charles seems to enjoy, frustrating as it is, and Erik supposes in a way that it has its uses. In particular, some countries are actively starting to ship their mutant citizens over to Genosha, saving Erik energy and effort, and they haven't been attacked in months.

"Besides, the Americans have their own problems right now. The Vietnamese have accused them of bombing Cambodia, a neutral country - well, the matter of neutrality is currently up for debate at present between the envoys, and I'm staying out of it. One of Nixon's last orders. Compared to the casualties caused there, civilian and otherwise..." Charles shrugs. "What _you've_ done to date rather pales in comparison." 

"Humans," Erik says derisively. "And you want to make peace with them still? If we leave them be, I think they'll kill each other without our help."

"Whatever happens on that front," Charles retorts, "I don't want _us_ becoming some sort of common enemy, the way Trask wanted. Don't play into Trask's hands." 

Mentions of Trask always sour Erik's mood, but as he takes them both to a little-used balcony overlooking the Genoshan jungle, Erik finds his mood picking up, regardless. They've gone from a little over a hundred mutants to a thousand, just in a few months, and for all of Trask Industries' sins, Genosha is self-sufficient, with crops and livestock. Occupied with his UN negotiations, Charles has had to cede much of the administrative running of Genosha to Hank-

"How was your trip to Cairo?" Charles asks, interrupting his thoughts, and Erik offers up the memories, Logan's profound irritation with the heat and sand, the rumours, the ineffective attempts to survey the desert based on a handful of reluctant tips. "Ah," Charles adds thoughtfully, then, "Yet another S-class mutant and his fiefdom, perhaps." 

"Perhaps." The occurrence hasn't been unusual, with highly powered mutants carving out territories in pockets around the world. To date, Erik hasn't really cared, but the territories are a source of constant irritation to Charles and his attempts to bid for peace. "He hasn't been bothering the locals. In Cairo, at least. Apparently he's absorbed the tribes."

"Not yet," Charles corrects, grumbling. "Of all the so-called Hellfire Kings," he adds, naming the rather lurid popularised human media name for the pocket fiefdom lordlings, "This En Sabah Nur is the most daring, apparently. And ruthless. I've heard from the Egyptian UN envoy that he might be reinstituting slavery."

"Probably an exaggeration." Erik hadn't been able to find this supposed new Hellfire King, let alone investigate it. The locals had been terrified of anyone who even remotely seemed to have mutant abilities. 

"Whatever it is, it needs to be addressed, if it's true. We can't have mutants misusing their powers like that." Charles narrows his eyes at Erik's snort. "We don't want another Shaw."

"I know." That was the argument Charles had finally successfully wielded to get Erik to agree to investigate the so-called Kings. Previously, Erik had been more inclined to leave them alone, thinking that humanity in general constituted a greater threat. 

Perhaps he had sounded too flippant - Charles tilts his head. "Much of the world sees _us_ as Hellfire Kings ourselves."

"Let them," Erik says dismissively, then smirks as Charles scowls at him. He kneels down beside the wheelchair, tipping up Charles' chin. "You might look good in a crown."

Charles growls and bats away his hand. "And I thought that you were rather _beyond_ these awfully tasteless attempts at costumery," he tells Erik, with a memory pushed to the fore, Erik dressed in his purple cape and armour. 

Erik can feel, under it all, Charles' amusement, and deeper, Charles' sidelong admiration of what Erik is currently dressed in: a white-sleeved shirt, thin to suit the weather, and gray trousers, well-cut, to show off the sleek line of his legs. Erik smirks, leaning up, locking the wheelchair in place with a thought, pulling Charles close to kiss him greedily, clenching his hands into the fine cotton of Charles' shirt.

Prolonged misuse of Hank's serum had created some semi-positive side effects - Charles still has some sensation beneath the waist, even if he didn't have finer motor control, and he still stiffens up under Erik's palm as Erik presses his hand between Charles' thighs. " _Here?_ " Charles hisses. "We're hardly in _private_."

"You're the world's most powerful telepath," Erik reminds him, smirking as he sucks a mark high up on Charles' neck and makes him squirm and gasp. 

"That's hardly an appropriate use of my abilities," Charles retorts, prim and proper as ever even under his pretty flush, his eyes dilating and dark with want. 

Erik smirks and pointedly undoes Charles' belt, rubbing his own firming cock up against one of Charles' unresponsive legs. Not that Charles needs the sensation. _The mind is actually our largest sex organ,_ Charles had once told him, _And for me there are some rather particular privileges._ Charles is using those 'privileges' now, interlinked within Erik's mind; sensation loops in a flush of pleasure and touch as Erik kisses Charles' tempting red mouth, then nips one plush lip, feeling the ghost of pressure on his own as Charles moans and tugs fingers into his hair. 

They kiss until Erik's knees start to ache, pressed against the hard slate floor, then Charles groans and nods as Erik squeezes him again between his thighs. It still amazes Erik on a fundamental level that Charles is allowing him this, that Charles _invites_ it, that despite all that Erik has sundered between them both he has not broken _this_ , but Charles smiles at him as though he heard and tugs at him, projecting a brief image of Erik balanced precariously on Charles' lap in the wheelchair. 

_Later_ , Erik tells Charles regretfully, because they have no lube here, and gets a snort in response, with a _And whose idea was it to start off a tryst in an inappropriate location?_ Erik grins sharply in response, unbuttoning Charles' trousers and drawing out his arousal, squeezing it a touch harder than he normally would for himself. Sensation is dulled for Charles here, however, and Charles groans and parts his lips, begging for another kiss, but Erik wants more, right now. He always does. 

Erik lowers his head instead, to kiss all that swollen flesh, angling to allow Charles a good view, and Charles' voice hitches even as Erik feels the ghost of pressure against his own cock, trapped in his trousers, in a sudden dizzy rush of pleasure and want. He licks next, harder, encouraged by the tiny whimper that escapes Charles' clenched teeth, then nips and lets out a low laugh as Charles yelps, " _Erik_ ," and stiffens up, startled and embarrassed by the slip. 

_If I could afford to I would go back on the serum,_ Charles tells him, dazed and liquid with pleasure as Erik sucks in the thick head of his cock, licking hard against the slit. Erik projects exasperation in response, and Charles chuckles breathlessly, stroking his hands restlessly over Erik's shoulders. _Not just to walk_ , Charles adds, and then hits Erik with a series of remarkably filthy images, each more lewd than the last: Charles fucking Erik bent against his desk, his fingers pressed into Erik's mouth; Erik in his lap over on a bench in the gardens, straddling him, rising and dropping back down to impale himself- 

Sensation feeds hot and visceral through every impression, and Erik finds himself riding up against Charles' leg with a harsh shout as he comes in his trousers, uncontrollably. As he slumps against Charles, breathing hard, he shoves irritation and amusement both into Charles' mind, and a curt, _You bastard_ , that makes Charles smirk down at him. 

"How was _that_ an appropriate use of your powers?" Erik tells him dryly, even as he strokes Charles in a rough fist of his fingers. 

"I... uhm," Charles' breath catches, then he groans as Erik bends back down, to take as much as he can into his mouth and suck, stroking the rest roughly, until Charles comes with a yelp and fingers pulling painfully tight in Erik's hair. Erik swallows, greedy as ever, and he's smirking again as he tucks Charles back in and buckles his belt. 

Charles stares at him, dazed, as Erik pointedly licks his lips, then he laughs and pulls Erik over to kiss him, tangling the fingers of their hands together, his mind a warm hum of satiation and affection. Sometimes Erik still sees Raven's ghost in Charles' mind, with Charles' years'-old resentments, his grief, his resignation, but either Charles is guarding it from him now or it's a become another casualty of Charles' strangely vast capacity for forgiveness. Erik doesn't care. His life to date has taught him to take what he must, and hold on fiercely to it while he can; he has more than he has ever asked for from Charles.

"Ororo's parents want to visit," Charles tells him, when Erik takes them up to their rooms to get changed. The weight of Charles' gaze is hot, almost possessive, as Erik strips off his shirt, then his belt, and Erik smirks knowingly at him even as he starts on his stained trousers. 

"Letting humans into Genosha?"

"It's either that or allow her to fly back to the United States," Charles shrugs. "Two parents are hardly going to be any sort of security breach, or whatever you're thinking. Besides, I think it would be a good experience for everyone. Her father is a journalist. He could write an article."

"A good article?"

"I presume so. We can be open about how we run Genosha. We'll show him what he wants, and he can draw his own conclusions." Another shrug. "Freedom of the press."

Erik snorts. "He's human."

"He's _also_ Ororo's father, and surely he'll see that she loves it here. She misses them. And besides," Charles adds dryly, "Total segregation just for the sake of segregation isn't particularly healthy." 

It's an old argument between them, even as Erik dumps his stained clothes into the laundry basket and steps into the bathroom for a quick wash, sensing rather than seeing the way Charles' eyes run up his arse over his spine. Charles is easy sometimes. "If anything happens to them while they're here, it won't be my concern."

"Of course. I'll be taking them around myself. It'll be good if we could convince parents that we're not child kidnappers. They could view Genosha as a boarding school of sorts. It'll encourage others to send us their children, rather than fear or reject them." 

"Or so you hope." Erik dresses quickly and emerges from the bathroom, pressing his palms on the handlebars of the wheelchair and leaning down to steal a brushing kiss. 

"Global opinion's rather inclined to see us as some sort of isolationist, possibly communist mutant island-state," Charles points out mildly. 

"You're the one concerned about global opinion." Erik eyes Charles appreciatively. Charles looks visibly rumpled, and he smells of sex - Erik's cock twitches a little just at the thought, and Charles frowns abruptly at him and pushes him back, wheeling over to the wardrobe to get a change of clothes. Amused, Erik sits down on the bed to watch. 

"I'm surprised that _you're_ not," Charles retorts, even as he selects a shirt. 

"I'm only concerned about _your_ opinion," Erik replies carelessly, and grins at the patently disbelieving glance that Charles darts at him over his shoulder. "Which is not to say that you're right all the time."

"I'm definitely right _almost all_ the time," Charles corrects, though Erik touches amusement in the feedback that Charles presses into his mind, and a soft, helpless pleasure at Erik's words that he can't seem to control. For all that Erik seems irrevocably tangled in Charles, in Charles' convictions, in his orbit; Charles too is meshed with Erik, even with the darker parts of Erik's make. They have recast each other, violently, sometimes bitterly, but they've always been stronger like this, as one, as much as they'll likely hardly ever agree on the best of the things. Erik will take what he can get. What he must.

After all, it's been months since Erik has dreamed of being trapped alone and buried deep within the earth.

Charles emerges eventually from the bathroom, glancing at him curiously, then as though he's heard Erik's thoughts all along, he wheels himself closer, and holds out his hand. "All this time," Charles says wryly, "All those past years, wasted." 

Erik clasps Charles' hand, slipping off the bed as he does so, to kiss Charles over his temple. "All the years to come," he whispers, and it's a promise, to himself, to Charles - Charles lets out a soft sound, and lifts their hands, to brush his lips over their interlinked fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you want to chat, I'm on twitter @manic_intent ^^


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